Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies - Hardcover

"The Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies is an exceptional academic text for a broad examination of gender. The well-organized, eight-section volume focuses on gender through a wide range of academic lenses. Its twenty-six chapters offer diverse theoretical, geographical, historical, and academic perspectives, yet display a common desire to understand the human division of male and female." (Erin Gratz The University of Wisconsin System 2007-02-06)

This impressive collection of articles about the state of gender and women's studies encompasses a range of intellectual perspectives and suggest new directions for feminist theory, analysis, and research in the 21st century. These challenging essays engage scholars in a lively debate that calls for recognition of the revolutionary impact of feminist thought on the academy, with particular emphasis on its disruption of traditional ways to knowing, analyzing, and understanding. Summing Up: Highly recommended.
(A.K. Frisken CHOICE 2007-05-18)

"This breathtakingly broad, interdisciplinary reader demonstrates how widely feminist thinking has spread, how deeply it has shaken settled assumptions in the disciplines and how much new light it throws on contemporary controversies."
- Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"A timely intervention and highly engaged, thoughtful and scholarly analysis of the state of gender and women's studies in the West by three eminent feminist scholars... Highly cognisant of the central issues that have fractured, blocked and enhanced western feminism."
- Bev Skeggs, Goldsmiths

"The comprehensiveness and the interdisciplinary range of themes are impressive, and they make the Handbook into a wonderful tool for teachers and students of women's and gender studies."
- Nina Lykke, Linkoeping University

Gender and women's studies is one of the most challenging fields within the social sciences - the dynamics of gender relations and the social and cultural implications of gender constructions offer a lively forum of debate.

The Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies presents a comprehensive and engaging review of the most recent developments within the field, including the study of masculinity, the feminist implications of postmodernism, the 'cultural turn' and globalization. The authors review current research and offer critical analyses of women's and gender studies in work, the welfare state, family, education, religion, violence and war and feminist global politics.

Edited by three leading academics from Europe and the United States, and with 25 chapters written by scholars based throughout the world, the Handbook situates the most important debates in the field within a uniquely international and interdisciplinary context. The Handbook is a useful introduction to gender theory and an exciting starting-point for fresh debates.