The Essential Feminist Reader (Modern Library Classics)

Including: Susan B. Anthony Simone de Beauvoir W.E.B. Du Bois Hélène Cixous Betty Friedan Charlotte Perkins Gilman Emma Goldman Guerrilla Girls Ding Ling • Audre Lorde John Stuart Mill Christine de Pizan Adrienne Rich Margaret Sanger Huda Shaarawi • Sojourner Truth Mary Wollstonecraft Virginia WoolfThe Essential Feminist Reader is the first anthology to present the full scope of feminist history. Prizewinning historian Estelle B. Freedman brings decades of teaching experience and scholarship to her selections which span more than five centuries. Moving beyond standard texts by English and American thinkers this collection features primary source material from around the globe including short works of fiction and drama political manifestos and the work of less well-known writers.Freedman’s cogent Introduction assesses the challenges facing feminism while her accessible lively commentary contextualizes each piece.The Essential Feminist Reader is a vital addition to feminist scholarship and an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of women. About the Author For the past twenty-five years Estelle B. Freedman a founder of the Program in Feminist Gender and Sexuality Studies at Stanford University has written about the history of women in the United States. Freedman is the author of two award-winning studies: Their Sisters’ Keepers: Women’s Prison Reform in America 1830-1930 and Maternal Justice: Miriam Van Waters and the Female Reform Tradition. Freedman coauthored Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America which was a New York Times Notable Book. Professor Freedman lives in San Francisco. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Christine de Pizan(1365-c. 1430)The Book of the City of Ladies(France 1405)For centuries European writers grappled with the querelles desfemmes or the woman question in response to the work of Christine de Pizan. At a time when both the Catholic Church andmedieval states reinforced patriarchal authority in the family dePizan questioned the biblical and natural justifications for mensrule over women. Whether cursed by the sin of Eve or presumed to be intellectually as well as physically weaker then men women generally did not merit education. During the Renaissance however women whowished to extend humanist ideas about the importance of education to their own sex defended female intellectual capacity. Born in Veniceand raised in Paris Christine de Pizan read widely in the subjects ofphilosophy and science (her father was a scholar). When she became ayoung widow she put her education to good use supporting her family as a writer. In Epistre au dieu dAmours (Poems of Cupid God ofLove) (1399) she defended Eve. In The Book of the City of Ladies thecharacters Christine converses with are three Ladies-Reason Rectitude and Justice-who refute contemporary theories of female inferiority. The Ladies also catalogue the learned women of the Bibleand of classical myth as well as the women who illustrate female intellectual capability in history. Over the next six hundred years feminists continued to place female education at the foundation oftheir quest to achieve womens full humanity.One day as I was sitting alone in my study surrounded by books on all kinds of subjects devoting myself to literary studies my usual habit my mind dwelt at length on the weighty opinions of various authors whom I had studied for a long time. I looked up from my bookhaving decided to leave such subtle questions in peace and to relax by reading some light poetry. With this in mind I searched for some small book. By chance a strange volume came into my hands not one of my own but one which had been given to me along with some others.When I held it open and saw from its title page that it was by Mathéolus I smiled for though I had never seen it before I had often heard that like othe