Tearing the Veil (RLE Feminist Theory): Essays on Femininity (Routledge Library Editions: Feminist Theory) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 041563704X ISBN 13: 9780415637046

Publisher: Routledge, 2012

Synopsis

This a collection of essays about women, by women, which examine the production of femininity within a patriarchal society. The essays show that characteristics generally considered to be ‘feminine’ are in fact cultural constructions within a patriarchal order. The patriarchal culture is taken by us to be a system of meanings, as well as power relations, which pervades our view of women at both a conscious and an unconscious level.

The symbolism of the rituals, myths, art works and polemics examined in the essays is related to the ways women are psychically constructed and constrained by the dominant heterosexual order. The Mother, the Witch, the Whore, the Pure Woman, the Amazon and the Free Woman are considered and the contributors make extensive use of original source material to give force to the argument that the stereotypic view of a feminine woman as naturally and inevitably weak, passive and powerless is one that can be seriously challenged.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Lipschitz

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 041563704X
• ISBN 13: 9780415637046
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 168
• Editor: Lipschitz Susan