Feminist Legal Theory: An Anti-Essentialist Reader

View the Table of Contents or the Introductions by Nancy E. Dowd and Michelle S. Jacobs

"...Recommend quite strongly this well-edited and thought-provoking text. It provides a valuable contribution to legal scholarhsip."
—Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice

"If one wants to engage with the differences of women's lives in experiences, Dowd and Jacob's Anti-Essentialist Reader will be an enlightening beginning. With its emphasis on collaboration, it includes necessary but uncomfortable conversations, recognizing the challenges of cultural ethnocentrism and relativism which American feminists face. There are few expectations upon which it does not deliver."
—Feminist Legal Studies

Feminist Legal Theory is a groundbreaking collection of feminist work proceeding from the core assumption that the differences among women are essential to feminist analysis. Rather than presenting feminist legal theory sequentially, with "African American feminism" or "critical race feminism" added on at the end, the volume thoroughly integrates key readings from non-white, non-middle class, and non-mainstream writers throughout.

The volume explores the intersections of race, class, and gender in such areas as theory, family, work and economic issues, and violence against women. Each section of the book begins with an introduction providing context and insights into how the particular pieces included challenge norms and create new paradigms. This vibrant, challenging collection of work by a broad range of authors represents the cutting edge of feminist theory in concrete applications essential to gender equality.

Contributors include: Patricia Hill Collins, Bonnie Thornton Dill, Angela P. Harris, Sylvia A. Law, Mari Matsuda, Martha Minow, Esther Ngan-Ling Chow, john a. powell, Jenny Rivera, and Maxine Baca Zinn.