Dear Mary,

There is one book that I would Highly recommend that being an Ed. book by Garry, A. and Pearsall, M., (1996) Women, Knowledge, and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy. Second, and just as important would be Collins, P. H. (2000) Black feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Third hooks, B. (2000) All About Love. 

In the Garry and Pearsall's edited book you will find the seminal work and the scholars who blazed a trail for many others to follow.

I hope this helps,

Douglas

While I was looking for the Garry and Pearsall book I also found Nell Noddings' work. Since she attends to schools particularly, her stuff will also be informative. Thanks for starting me off on a good trail. 

bismillah

Salaam Mary Frances Rice:

It was my great pleasure to read Katherine Bullock's book

'Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil'

I have pasted the first half of the introduction and ISBN below. if western feminism can stand criticism, this is what you should read.

isbn 1–56564–287–2 paperback

isbn 1–56564–286–4 hardback

Of knowledge, we have none, save what

You have taught us. (The Qur’an 2:32)

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) has great pleasure

in presenting this treatise on Muslim women and the veil. The

author, Dr. Katherine Bullock, embraced Islam during her Ph.D. candidacy

and, interestingly, it was the experience of people’s reaction to

her conversion that led her to change the original topic of her doctoral

thesis and choose instead the study of the veil as the subject of her Ph.D.

Through careful and meticulous study into an area fraught with historical

and cultural misconceptions the author has sought to challenge

some of the subjective and negative fundamentals which have come to

dominate much of the discourse into this important issue today.

This detailed and significant study is a powerful critique of the popular

western notion that the veil is a symbol of Muslim women’s

oppression. In postulating a positive theory of the ^ij¥b, the author

challenges with great sophistication both the popular culture view of

Muslim women as being utterly subjugated by men, as well as the more

complex arguments put forward by liberal feminists such as Mernissi,

Macleod, and others who have sought to criticize women’s choices to

cover as ultimately ‘un-liberating.’ Examining and questionning the

validity and accuracy of some of the latter’s assumptions, the author

puts forward the case that the judgment of the veil as being an oppressive

feature of Islam is based on liberal understandings of ‘equality’

and ‘liberty’ that preclude other ways of thinking about ‘equality’ and

‘liberty’ which would offer a more positive approach for contemplating

the wearing of the veil.

@Mary, you may find the following papers interesting. Regards.

http://ema.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/10/01/1741143214543202

http://www.google.ae/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CBwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Feprints.soton.ac.uk%2F372764%2F1%2FEMAL%2520SA%2520Gender%2520FV%2520full%2520version.doc&ei=FzLYVKQKztZquK6BsAo&usg=AFQjCNEx7Ee-0gKe8-GDuzm_3Wh3WhucxA&bvm=bv.85464276,d.d2s

Hi Mary, your question stimulates me to write my theory. I don't have time for an article right now:

The women have multiaspect role in society, science and culture. It can be positive, but also negative and to trouble society deeply. However, gender matters in society, culture and science. How the men and women collaborate is crucial for specific segments. Then, it is not the women themselves, but together with men who they represent or collaborate with, create the real process and the results of the process. We always need to have in mind the visible and the invisible relationship between genders and within gender in any step of the social process. We also need to have in mind that the gender is a historical category and the role of women in early 21st century is a result of the feminist movements in later 20 century - a result with many negative consequences for society. Many women today in science entered it with connections and trouble very seriously society. Some of these women were integrated as intrigue makers or trouble makers, without having even the minimum standards for real science. This process continues. It looks male scientists love to integrate women who do not have the real high standards just to make intrigues and to diminish the other category of women who work hard and do everything with hard work. We do not have steady criteria for integration into the prestige professions and this stage of development of science needs to be transformed into a stage of objective criteria thanks to which the professional to enter specific fields, in particular college teaching and science. I believe one of the reasons not to have such, are women-leaders, who always would prefer the subjective criteria. One the whole, we do not need a critical view in feminism of 20th century (it is a grey literature with no or very little value), but to think how to create objective ground for the future of human society in which feminism will be buried utopia and humanity will be the leading principal. The humanity does not need gender privileges or division, it needs moral, non-intrigue behaviors, honesty and really good knowledge.

Thanks for the question.

 Hello, it seems too easy to say humanity over gender there will be humanity after gender biases are adressed and construction of injustices based on gender constructions overcome I would suggest Sharpe "Conceiving the new world order "

I would say that theories of language are still current. Dale Spender's Man Made Language is crucial.

Dear Mary,

@ Lolita, Your claim " One the whole, we do not need a critical view in feminism of 20th century (it is a grey literature with no or very little value)" furthered by women who in "early 21st century is a result of the feminist movements in later 20 century - a result with many negative consequences for society" is baseless.Even if true that the  "question stimulates me to write my theory. I don't have time for an article right now" one would certainly have offered a tip bit of some information substantiating such a wild accusation given the audience, don't you agree? 

Feminism and feminist thought has been widely accepted as having a long and noble history dating back to antiquity and the scholarship derived by the use of such a theoretical and methodological framework . Feminism also has gained wide acceptance within the sciences with critical feminism focus on systems of oppression and patriarchy as a social system/structure is one feminist thought claims. Patriarchy, (male dominance) has over the generations become viewed as a social "normality". Patriarchy feminism argues is a social structure which is actively participating in the oppression of women. However, as you write "for the future of human society feminism will be buried utopia" . I wonder if there may be some personal animosity or misogynistic feelings toward other women in science do to this statement  " Many women today in science entered it with connections and trouble very seriously society. Some of these women were integrated as intrigue makers or trouble makers, without having even the minimum standards for real science" would seem to imply.

Early feminism has pointed out and critiqued the misogynistic writings found in ancient Greek literature as Deipnosophistae and Hippocrates demonstrates. Aristotle, Socrates, and both Christianity and Islamic religious texts have demonstrated to contain misogynistic slants as well as Scientology.

Feminism ,Misogyny, and Philosophy; just as in Greek and religious texts expressed a degree of hate or fear of women the same is true in philosophical writings from the Enlightenment period through the 20th century. Examples are found in publications by Descartes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Hegel, Freud, and Lucas. Feminist literature during the 14th and early 15th century are in the writings of Christen de Pizan's City of Ladies, continued by Simone de Beauvoir and Agrippa in the 15th-16th centuries, Woolley and de la Cruz 17th and 18th centuries. In the 18th century Bentham, Condorcet, and Wollstonecraft, along with Austen, Gaskell, and Elliot were of note in the 19th.

Feminism, Media and Modernity; Feminist theory has also pointed to the misogyny located in music as the critique of Madonna as the whore-complex,. Visually in Rap, R&B and Rock videos along with there misogynistic lyrics. Main Stream media depicting women as non intellectual domestic servants submissive to the husband. It was not 1968 and the show Julia were women depicted as a strong intellectual independent women which was soon followed by the independent news women on the  Marry Tyler More Show 1970 and Maude as a feminist in 1972.

Feminism and the 20th century; Many scholars claim this to be the "first wave" of feminist thought as the so called first wave was concerned with the women suffrage with women such as Stanton, Anthony, and Gage leading the way to the passage of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1919 but as you claim this work is of little value. Women began to express equality around the world with such women as Tahirih in Persia, Ichikawa in Japan, and Dittmar in Germany. In the U.S. The National League of Women Voters is established,  National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, and the National Association for Colored Women, to name just a few. Women leaders including Ida B. Wells-Barnett Black news paper reporter and editor, Chapmen- Catt Founder NLWV, and Sanger who opened the first birth control center, advocate for sex education and eventually founded Planed Parenthood but all this is of little value and grey literature as claimed by you.

Feminism took on issues of discrimination and their lack of freedom starting with the book The Feminine Mystique by Freidan, Democratic students unions began to "pop up" on college campuses and courses in Women's Studies became institutionalized as programs and departments in colleges across the U.S. Women Studies began publish scholarly papers which were widely praised and critiqued even though you claim and Nouf agrees that no critique necessary because nothing of value came from such scholarship.To many contributions by feminist methodology in the 20th century to name all but such progressive advancements as the  Equal Rights Amendment, Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1963 were all supported by feminism. The United Nations Commission on The Status of Women 1946, Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1946, culminating in the Beijing Platform For Action in 1995 in it the issue of  "gender" equality is listed. Yet, the scholarship has little to no value both argue.

I agree that "We also need to have in mind that the gender is a historical category" and thereby you should be well aware of the historical oppression of one (women) and the privileges received by the other (men). However your argue that, "We always need to have in mind the visible and the invisible relationship between genders and within gender in any step of the social process" continuing, " Many women today in science entered it  [science] with connections and trouble very seriously society. Some of these women were integrated as intrigue makers or trouble makers, without having even the minimum standards for real science". Followed by "humanity does not need gender privileges or division, it needs moral, non-intrigue behaviors, honesty and really good knowledge". This is as Mylene states "it seems to easy to say humanity over gender...after gender biases are addressed". I ask a critical question here Lolita, WHO WILL ADDRESS THESE ISSUES if not FEMINISTS?

Today we have feminists such as Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, Aundra Lourd, Blum-Martinez, and Nancy Lopez all critical feminists scholars and all working to exposes as you state the "invisible" social ideological connection between patriarch and the oppression of women. I suggest that much of current feminist thought does in-fact rest on the work of feminist scholars in the 20th century and that is of value to many 100,000's of women across this nation and around the globe.

Lolita, your position simply does not raise to the level of intellectual honesty or is in keeping with intellectual integrity and for that reason I felt the need to write this reply.

Douglas 

Hi

it is useful to look at domestic violence, women's resistance and how they are bargaining with patriarchal society. Also you can evoke the feminisation of poverty as it is a most socially marginalised type of women.

I highly recommend 

The bargaining issue that Hamad raised intrigues me. I appreciate the conversation on this topic, even though we do not all agree. It is really helping me think. 

I enjoyed this thoughtful comment!

I'm nor sure if you're also interested in questions of feminist epistemology? If so, I believe that Donna Haraway (1988) "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective" (Feminist Studies 14, 575-599) is still an absolute "must read".

I have used Haraway's work before. Thanks for bringing my mind back to it.