Since its inception, Polity has been committed to publishing pioneering and innovative texts in gender studies and feminist theory. The objective has been twofold: to produce a distinctive list in these areas and to integrate a concern with gender and feminist insights into the list as a whole.
Among our many well known authors in this field are Carole Pateman, Henrietta Moore, Anne Phillips, Catherine Hall, Michèle Barrett, Nancy Fraser, Seyla Benhabib, Bob Connell, Lois McNay, Lynne Segal, Susan Hekman, Judith Squires, Mary Lyndon Shanley, Donna Dickenson, Sylvia Walby, Rosalind Minsky, Anne Oakley, Jeffrey Weeks, Elizabeth Wright, Rosi Braidotti, Linda McDowell, Jill Steans, Lucy Bland, Lorna Doan, Nicole Ward Jouve, Janet Wolff, Hilary Rose and Leonore Davidoff.
Visit our highlights page for more information on our new and forthcoming general interest titles.
Connell: Gender
'A comprehensive and accessible sociological introduction to the study of gender in a multicultural, global world. A stunning, thought-provoking, wonderfully engaging volume to learn from and argue with.'
Steven Seidman, Professor of Sociology, State University of New York at Albany
Bradley: Gender
"Harriet Bradley’s Gender is a wide-ranging and impressive survey of 30 years of feminist theorizing. Interleaved with gripping reflections on an individual's gendered life, this book will be an invaluable resource for teaching about gender across the social sciences."
Linda McDowell, University of Oxford
Harriet Bradley provides an introduction to the concept of gender and the different theoretical approaches which have developed within gender studies. Using life narratives, she explores contemporary relations of masculinity and femininity and investigates processes of gendering in three important spheres of contemporary social life: production, reproduction and consumption.
Gill: Gender and the Media
"Gender and the Media is a lively and stimulating read and works as an excellent introduction for students in the field of media and gender studies. It is also a grown-up book that moves beyond the current feminist preoccupation with ‘girls’, to a renewed focus on ‘women’ in their infinite variety. I strongly recommend it."
European Journal of Women’s Studies
Looks in depth at five areas of media - talk shows, magazines, news, advertising, and contemporary screen and paperback romances - to examine how representations of women and men are changing in the twenty-first century, partly in response to feminist, queer and anti-racist critique.
Moore: The Subject of Anthropology
"Henrietta Moore seeks to build a theory of gendered subjectivity by articulating the insights of psychoanalysis, anthropology and feminism. The extended readings of psychoanalytic theory through anthropological and feminist eyes are clear and illuminating. This is a rich and thought-provoking book."
Sherry B. Ortner, University of California-Los Angeles
Using detailed ethnographic material from Africa and Melanesia to explore the strengths and weaknesses of a range of theories in anthropology, feminism and psychoanalysis, Moore advocates an ethics of engagement based on a detailed understanding of the differences and similarities in the ways in which local communities and western scholars have imaginatively deployed the power of sexual difference. She demonstrates the importance of ethnographic listening, of focused attention to people’s imaginations, and of how this illuminates different facets of complex theoretical issues and human conundrums.
Entwistle: The Fashioned Body
"The Fashioned Body by Joanne Entwistle is an important acquisition for historians or students of fashion because the author rejects all overarching or reductive theories and, instead, examines fashion as something that is both produced and consumed."
The Art Book
Entwistle shows how an understanding of fashion and dress requires an understanding of the meanings acquired by the body in culture - since it is the body that fashion speaks to and which is dressed in almost all social situations and encounters. She argues that while fashion refers to a specific system of dress originating in the west, all cultures 'dress' the body in the same way, making it a crucial feature of social order.
Connell: Masculinities Second Edition
This is an exciting new edition of R.W. Connell's ground-breaking text, which has become a classic work on the nature and construction of masculine identity. Connell argues that there is not one masculinity, but many different masculinities, each associated with different positions of power. In a world gender order that continues to privilege men over women, but also raises difficult issues for men and boys, his account is more pertinent than ever before.
Stokes: Women in Contemporary Politics
‘This clearly written, broad-ranging and accessible book offers a comprehensive account of the burning issues facing women in contemporary politics. Covering local, national and international arenas, Wendy Stokes provides well-selected and up-to-date data on women's role in political parties, parliament, governments and international organizations. This will be an invaluable core textbook for all students of women and politics.'
Judith Squires, University of Bristol
