Focusing on the Western philosophical tradition and the work of contemporary feminists, Jean Elshtain explores the general tendency to assert the primacy of the public world—the political sphere dominated by men—and to denigrate the private world—the familial sphere dominated by women. She offers her own positive reconstruction of the public and the private in a feminist theory that reaffirms the importance of the family and envisions an "ethical polity."

Focusing on the Western philosophical tradition and the work of contemporary feminists, Jean Elshtain explores the general tendency to assert the primacy of the public world—the political sphere dominated by men—and to denigrate the private world—the familial sphere dominated by women. She offers her own positive reconstruction of the public and the private in a feminist theory that reaffirms the importance of the family and envisions an "ethical polity."

Series Blurb Oxford Readings in Feminism provide accessible, one-volume guides to the very best in contemporary feminist thinking, assessing its impact and importance in key areas of study. Collected together by scholars of outstanding reputation in their field, the articles chosen represent the most important work on feminist issues, and concise, lively introductions to each volume crystallize the main line of debate in the field. The categories of public and private have been at the centre of feminist theory for the past three decades. Focusing on the gendered relations of sexuality and the body, family life and democratic citizenship, feminists have redirected public debate on questions of privacy and publicity. They have challenged leading theories of the public sphere, adding immeasurably to the historical and cross-cultural understanding of public and private life, from the rise of liberal and democratic institutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to today's media-saturated public sphere. This volume presents the results of this multi-disciplinary feminist exploration. Contributors demonstrate the significance of the public/private distinction in feminist theory, its articulation in the modern and late modern public sphere, and its impact on identity politics within feminism in recent years. Feminism, the Public and the Private offers an essential perspective on feminist theory for students and teachers of women's and gender studies, cultural studies, history, political theory, geography and sociology.

Contends that, though early modern English canonical sources and sermons often urge the subordination of women, this was not indicative of public life, and that husbands, wives and servants often struggled over authority in the household.

Focusing on the Western philosophical tradition and the work of contemporary feminists, Jean Elshtain explores the general tendency to assert the primacy of the public world--the political sphere dominated by men--and to denigrate the private world--the familial sphere dominated by women. She offers her own positive reconstruction of the public and the private in a feminist theory that reaffirms the importance of the family and envisions an "ethical polity."

Feminist City is an ongoing experiment in living differently, living better, and living more justly in an urban world. We live in the city of men. Our public spaces are not designed for female bodies. There is little consideration for women as mothers, workers or carers. The urban streets often are a place of threats rather than community. Gentrification has made the everyday lives of women even more difficult. What would a metropolis for working women look like? A city of friendships beyond Sex and the City. A transit system that accommodates mothers with strollers on the school run. A public space with enough toilets. A place where women can walk without harassment. In Feminist City, through history, personal experience and popular culture Leslie Kern exposes what is hidden in plain sight: the social inequalities built into our cities, homes, and neighborhoods. Kern offers an alternative vision of the feminist city. Taking on fear, motherhood, friendship, activism, and the joys and perils of being alone, Kern maps the city from new vantage points, laying out an intersectional feminist approach to urban histories and proposes that the city is perhaps also our best hope for shaping a new urban future. It is time to dismantle what we take for granted about cities and to ask how we can build more just, sustainable, and women-friendly cities together.

Erika Bachiochi offers an original look at the development of feminism in the United States, advancing a vision of rights that rests upon our responsibilities to others. In The Rights of Women, Erika Bachiochi explores the development of feminist thought in the United States. Inspired by the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Bachiochi presents the intellectual history of a lost vision of women’s rights, seamlessly weaving philosophical insight, biographical portraits, and constitutional law to showcase the once predominant view that our rights properly rest upon our concrete responsibilities to God, self, family, and community. Bachiochi proposes a philosophical and legal framework for rights that builds on the communitarian tradition of feminist thought as seen in the work of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Jean Bethke Elshtain. Drawing on the insight of prominent figures such as Sarah Grimké, Frances Willard, Florence Kelley, Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Mary Ann Glendon, this book is unique in its treatment of the moral roots of women’s rights in America and its critique of the movement’s current trajectory. The Rights of Women provides a synthesis of ancient wisdom and modern political insight that locates the family’s vital work at the very center of personal and political self-government. Bachiochi demonstrates that when rights are properly understood as a civil and political apparatus born of the natural duties we owe to one another, they make more visible our personal responsibilities and more viable our common life together. This smart and sophisticated application of Wollstonecraft’s thought will serve as a guide for how we might better value the culturally essential work of the home and thereby promote authentic personal and political freedom. The Rights of Women will interest students and scholars of political theory, gender and women’s studies, constitutional law, and all readers interested in women’s rights.

Feminist Interpretations of Thomas Hobbes features the work of feminist scholars who are centrally engaged with Hobbes’s ideas and texts and who view Hobbes as an important touchstone in modern political thought. Bringing together scholars from the disciplines of philosophy, history, political theory, and English literature who embrace diverse theoretical and philosophical approaches and a range of feminist perspectives, this interdisciplinary collection aims to appeal to an audience of Hobbes scholars and nonspecialists alike. As a theorist whose trademark is a compelling argument for absolute sovereignty, Hobbes may seem initially to have little to offer twenty-first-century feminist thought. Yet, as the contributors to this collection demonstrate, Hobbesian political thought provides fertile ground for feminist inquiry. Indeed, in engaging Hobbes, feminist theory engages with what is perhaps the clearest and most influential articulation of the foundational concepts and ideas associated with modernity: freedom, equality, human nature, authority, consent, coercion, political obligation, and citizenship. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Joanne Boucher, Karen Detlefsen, Karen Green, Wendy Gunther-Canada, Jane S. Jaquette, S. A. Lloyd, Su Fang Ng, Carole Pateman, Gordon Schochet, Quentin Skinner, and Susanne Sreedhar.

“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil meets Camelot.”—Washington Post Book World In 1964, Mary Pinchot Meyer, the beautiful, rebellious, and intelligent ex-wife of a top CIA official, was killed on a quiet Georgetown towpath near her home. Mary Meyer was a secret mistress of President John F. Kennedy, whom she had known since private school days, and after her death, reports that she had kept a diary set off a tense search by her brother-in-law, newsman Ben Bradlee, and CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton. But the only suspect in her murder was acquitted, and today her life and death are still a source of intense speculation, as Nina Burleigh reveals in her widely praised book, the first to examine this haunting story. Praise for A Very Private Woman “Power is so utterly fascinating. Sometimes it’s used for evil purposes, like the kind of power that has silenced the telling of Mary Pinchot Meyer’s mysterious murder for over three decades. In A Very Private Woman, Nina Burleigh has finally told this tragic tale of a privileged beauty with friends in high places.”—Dominick Dunne “A superbly crafted, evocative glimpse of an adventurous spirit whose grisly murder remains a mystery.”—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review “Proves that every Washington sex scandal is juicy in its own way.”—Glamour “Nina Burleigh has dissected Washington’s most intriguing murder mystery and produced a captivating biography, a thriller, and an insightful portrait of Georgetown in its golden presidential age.”—Christopher Ogden, bestselling author of Life of the Party: The Life of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman “Provocative, erudite . . . pure Georgetown noir.”—New York Observer “A rich array of real-life characters.”—New York Times Book Review

In the decades spanning the nineteenth century, thousands of women entered the literary marketplace. Twelve of the century's most successful women writers provide the focus for Mary Kelley's landmark study: Maria Cummins, Caroline Howard Gilman, Caroline Lee Hentz, Mary Jane Holmes, Maria McIntosh, Sara Parton, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, E.D.E.N. Southworth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Virginia Terhune, Susan Warner, and Augusta Evans Wilson. These women shared more than commercial success. Collectively they created fictions that Kelley terms "literary domesticity," books that both embraced and called into question the complicated expectations shaping the lives of so many nineteenth-century women. Matured in a culture of domesticity and dismissed by a male writing establishment, they struggled to reconcile public recognition with the traditional roles of wife and mother. Drawing on the 200 volumes of published prose and on the letters, diaries, and journals of these writers, Kelley explores the tensions that accompanied their unprecedented literary success. In a new preface, she discusses the explosion in the scholarship on writing women since the original 1984 publication of Private Woman, Public Stage and reflects on the book's ongoing relevance.