Mary Evans 
Introducing Contemporary Feminist Thought 

This introductory textbook offers a concise and lucid account of
the main developments in contemporary feminist thinking, and
demonstrates the centrality of feminist thought to all areas of
intellectual enquiry.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Evans argues that most accounts of
the world since the Enlightenment have been constructed in terms of
a distinction between the public and the private which excluded
women. Using both historical and more recent examples, she examines
the breadth and complexity of feminist thinking, focusing on key
themes such as the body, representation, engendering knowledge, and
the relationship between women and the state.

Evans argues that feminist thought seeks less to add to existing
theory than to re-theorize the social and symbolic worlds; no
contemporary account of these worlds, she suggests, is complete
without a discussion of the implications of gender difference.

This book offers a clear and coherent guide to contemporary
feminism for students of women’s studies, gender studies,
sociology, social theory and literary theory.

Table of Content

Acknowledgements.

Introduction.

1. Enter Women.

2. Public and Private: Women and the State.

3. Engendering Knowledge.

4. Representation.

5. The Body.

6. Feminism and the Academy.

7. Worlds of Difference?.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index.

About the author

Mary Evans is Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury.