This text focuses on women's theorized experience of social class from a range of feminist perspectives, contextualized in relation to where they live.

In this ethnographic examination of Mexican-American and white girls coming of age in California’s Central Valley, Julie Bettie turns class theory on its head, asking what cultural gestures are involved in the performance of class, and how class subjectivity is constructed in relationship to color, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. A new introduction contextualizes the book for the contemporary moment and situates it within current directions in cultural theory. Investigating the cultural politics of how inequalities are both reproduced and challenged, Bettie examines the discursive formations that provide a context for the complex identity performances of contemporary girls. The book’s title refers at once to young working-class women who have little cultural capital to enable class mobility; to the fact that analyses of class too often remain insufficiently transformed by feminist, ethnic, and queer studies; and to the failure of some feminist theory itself to theorize women as class subjects. Women without Class makes a case for analytical and political attention to class, but not at the expense of attention to other social formations.

This text focuses on the theory of class as it relates to women. It debates questions such as: how do women define themselves in terms of social class and why?; is definition important or not?; what part does education play in our understanding of class?; and how does class affect relationships?

Gender equality has been one of the defining projects of European welfarestates. It has proven an elusive goal, not just because of political opposition but also due to a lack of clarity in how to best frame equality and take account of family-related considerations. This wide-ranging book assembles the most pertinent literature and evidence to provide a critical understanding of how contemporary state policies engage with gender inequalities.

Explanations of how identities are constructed are fundamental to contemporary debates in feminism and in cultural and social theory. Formations of Class & Gender demonstrates why class should be featured more prominently in theoretical accounts of gender, identity and power. Beverley Skeggs identifies the neglect of class, and shows how class and gender must be fused together to produce an accurate representation of power relations in modern society. The book questions how theoretical frameworks are generated for understanding how women live and produce themselves through social and cultural relations. It uses detailed ethnographic research to explain how ′real′ women inhabit and occupy the social and cultural positions of class, femininity and sexuality. As a critical examination of cultural representation - informed by recent feminist theory and the work of Pierre Bourdieu - the book is an articulate demonstration of how to translate theory into practice.

From one of our most important scholars and civil rights activist icon, a powerful study of the women’s liberation movement and the tangled knot of oppression facing Black women. “Angela Davis is herself a woman of undeniable courage. She should be heard.”—The New York Times Angela Davis provides a powerful history of the social and political influence of whiteness and elitism in feminism, from abolitionist days to the present, and demonstrates how the racist and classist biases of its leaders inevitably hampered any collective ambitions. While Black women were aided by some activists like Sarah and Angelina Grimke and the suffrage cause found unwavering support in Frederick Douglass, many women played on the fears of white supremacists for political gain rather than take an intersectional approach to liberation. Here, Davis not only contextualizes the legacy and pitfalls of civil and women’s rights activists, but also discusses Communist women, the murder of Emmitt Till, and Margaret Sanger’s racism. Davis shows readers how the inequalities between Black and white women influence the contemporary issues of rape, reproductive freedom, housework and child care in this bold and indispensable work.

Bringing together the classic statements on social stratification, this collection offers the most significant contributions to ongoing debates on the nature of race, class, and gender inequality.

The authors of this text set out to review current perspectives in social class analysis and also to demonstrate that research cannot be valid without the inclusion of data on women.

In recent years, mob attacks on women by men have drawn public attention to an emerging social phenomenon. This book draws upon concepts from critical race theory and sociocultural evolutionary theory to examine this specific form of gender violence, which takes place outside the law and is a vigilante form of enforcing traditional gender norms. The author positions vigilante gender violence as a global issue produced during specific periods of sociocultural change in conditions marked by intensified social stratification. The catalyst for vigilante gender violence is the formal state’s breaching of the "gender bargain," the tacit psychological wage even non-elite men earn by at least not being female. When the state threatens to end the gender bargain by promoting women’s rights, the die is cast for low-status men to enforce this bargain themselves in mob attacks against women who are perceived to be violating the patriarchal order. Seen through independent case studies in different national settings, this book provides empirical evidence that demonstrates the existence of vigilante gender violence in times when societies are shifting from one phase to another and the social hierarchies present within are disrupted. With greater understanding of when and how to predict the occurrence of this phenomenon, the author posits notable ways to prevent it from happening altogether.

This book offers an up-to-the-moment assessment of the condition of the American family in an era of growing inequality.