In January, 1997, Joya Misra asked WMST-L readers to tell her what 5-10 books/articles they felt any student of feminist theory should read (especially works from the last 10-15 years). What follows are the suggestions she received, listed alphabetically. She adds that bell hooks received far and away the most votes, followed by Chandra Mohanty and Patricia Hill Collins. See also the later WMST-L discussion, Feminist Theory: Suggested Readings II. For additional WMST-L files now available on the Web, see the WMST-L File List.
Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera; Haciendo Caras/Making Face, Making Soul
Gloria Anzaldua and Cherrie Moraga, eds, This Bridge Called My Back
Michele Barrett and Anne Phillips, eds, Destabilizing Theory: Contemporary Feminist Debates
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
Evelyn Torton Beck, Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology
Mary Field Belenky et al., Women's Ways of Knowing
Pat Bell-Scott, Life Notes
Sayla Benhabibo and Drucilla Cornell, eds, Feminism as Critique
Gisela Bock and Susan James, eds, Beyond Equality and Difference
Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects; Patterns of Dissonance
Charlotte Bunch, Passionate Politics
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble; Bodies that Matter
Judith Butler & Joan Scott, Feminists Theorize the Political
Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering; Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought
RW Connell, Gender and Power
Drucilla Cornell, Beyond Accommodation; Transformations
Karin Bergstrom Costello, ed., Gendered Voices
Mary Daly, Gyn-Ecology
Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class
Teresa deLauretis, Technologies of Gender; Feminist Studies, Critical Studies; Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Culture
Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur
Josephine Donovan, Feminist Theory: the Intellectual Traditions of American Feminism; Feminist Literary Criticism
Carol Anne Douglas, Love and Politics; Radical Feminism and Lesbian Theories
du Cille, Ann, "The Occult of True Black Womanhood: Critical Demeanor and Black Feminist Studies."
Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women
Andrew Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, Pornography and Civil Rights
Margrit Eichler, "Towards a Methodology for Feminist Research"; The Double Standard
Hester Eisenstein, Contemporary Feminist Thought; Gender Shock
Zillah Eisenstein, The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism; Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism; The Color of Gender
Frederik Engels, The Origins of the Family; Private Property and the State
Anna Fausto-Sterling, Myths of Gender
Marianne A. Ferber and Julie A. Nelson, eds, Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics
Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectics of Sex
Jane Flax, Thinking Fragments
Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique; The Second Stage; "The Problem That Has No Name"
Ruth Frankenberg, White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness
Marilyn Frye, Politics of Reality, "Oppression"
Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality
Judith Kegan Gardiner, Provoking Agents: Gender and Agency in Theory and Practice
Joyce Gelb and Marian Lief Palley, Women and Public Policies
Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice
Patricia Aljerg Graham, "Expansion and Exclusion: A History of Women in American Higher Education"
Judith Grant, Fundamental Feminism: Contesting the Core Concepts of Feminist Theory
Elizabeth Grosz, Crossing Boundaries; Sexual Subversions; Volatile Bodies
Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Words of Fire: An Anthology of African- American Feminist Thought
Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs & Women; ŞManifesto for Cyborgs
Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism; Feminism and Methodology
Nancy Hartsock, Money, Sex and Power: Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism
Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery
ME Hawkesworth, Beyond Oppression: Feminist Theory and Political Strategy
Virginia Held, Feminist Morality: Tranforming Culture, Society, and Politics
Rosemary Hennessy, Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse
Anne Herrmann and Abigail J. Stewart, eds, Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox-Keller, eds, Conflicts in Feminism
Sarah Hoagland, Lesbian Ethics
bell hooks, outlaw culture; black looks; feminist theory from margin to center
Maggie Humm, Dictionary of Feminist Thought; Modern Feminisms: Literary, Political, Cultural
Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One
Alison Jaggar, Feminist Politics and Human Nature, Feminist Frameworks
Alison Jaggar and Susan Bordo, eds, Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing
Alice Jardine, Gynesis
Gloria Joseph and Jill Lewis, Common Differences: Conflicts in Black and White Feminist Perspectives
Karen Kahn, Frontline Feminism 1975-1995
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz. The Issue is Power: Essays on Women, Jews, Violence and Resistance.
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior
Cheris Kramarae and Dale Spender, eds, The Knowledge Explosion, Generations of Feminist Scholarship
M. C. Lam, "Feeling Foreign in Feminism"
Patti Lather, Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy with/in the Postmodern
Gerda Lerner, Creation of Patriarchy; Creation of Feminist Consciousness
Lucy Lippard, Get the Message?, From the Center, Sexual Politics
Judith Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender
Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider; Zami; Coal
Catharine MacKinnon, Towards a Feminist Theory of the State; Feminism Unmodified
Claire Marks & Isabelle de Courtivron, New French Feminisms: An Anthology
Peggy McIntosh, "White Privilege and Male Privilege"
Kate Millett, Sexual Politics
Juliet Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism, Woman's Estate
Chandra Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes," "On Race and Voice: Challenges for Liberal Education in the 1990s"
Chandra Mohanty, Ann Russo, Lourdes Torres, eds, Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism
Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics, French Feminist Thought
Toni Morrison, Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power
Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures
Linda J. Nicholson, Feminism/Postmodernism
Joyce McCarl Nielsen, Feminist Methods
Susan Moller Okin, Women in Western Political Thought
Susan Moller Okin and Jane Mansbridge, Feminism
Sherry Ortner and Harriet Whitehead, eds, Sexual Meanings
Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae; Sex, Art, and American Culture
Carole Pateman and Elizabeth Gross, eds., Feminist Challenges: Social and Political Theory
Janice Peterson and Doug Brown, eds, The Economic Status of Women under Capitalism
Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ, eds., Womanspirit Rising
Minnie Bruce Pratt, Rebellion: Essays 1980-1991
Elspeth Probyn, Sexing the Self
Radicalesbians "The Woman Identified Woman"
Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born,"Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence"
Diane Richardson and Victoria Robinson, eds, Thinking Feminist: Key Concepts in Womens Studies
Jennifer Ring, Modern Political Theory and Contemporary Feminism
Barbara Katz Rothman, Recreating Motherhood
Gayle Rubin, "Thinking Sex," "The Traffic in Women"
Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking
Chela Sandoval, "US Third World Feminsm"; "Feminist Theory under Postmodern Conditions: Toward a Theory of Oppositional Consciousness"
Joan Scott, "The Evidence of Experience; Gender and the Politics of History"; her essay in Contesting Feminisms; ed, Feminism and History
Mary Shanley and Carole Pateman, eds, Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory
Barbara Smith, Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology
Valerie Solanas, "SCUM manifesto for history"
Elizabeth Spelman, Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, In Other Worlds, Outside in the Teaching Machine
Donna Stanton, "Feminisms in the Academy"
Gloria Steinem, "What It Would Be Like if Women Win"
Trinh, T. Minh-ha, Woman Native Other, "Commitment from the Mirror-Writing Box"
Barrie Thorne and Marilyn Yalom, eds, Rethinking the Family
Rosemarie Tong, Feminist Thought
Nancy Tuana, Women and the History of Philosophy; Feminism and Philosophy
Elizabeth Weed, ed, Coming to Terms: Feminism, Theory, Politics
Chris Weedon, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory
Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind and Other Essays
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth
Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas
Janet Wolff, Feminine Sentences: Essays on Women and Culture
Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference; Throwing like a Girl