Difference

Feminism, Theory, and the Politics of Difference by Chris Weedon

Difference is a key term in contemporary feminism. Since the 1700s women have been concerned with how they are seen as different from men and the social consequences of such assumed and actual differences. Whereas early second-wave feminism stressed women´s shared oppression and sisterhood, more recent feminism has stressed difference - of class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and age. Feminism, Theory and the Politics of Difference looks at the question of difference across the full spectrum of feminist theory from liberal, radical, lesbian and socialist theories to Black and post-colonial feminisms. It relates feminist approaches to difference and diversity to the tendency within postmodernism to celebrate them often without due attention to power. Contents : Preface. Acknowledgements. 1 The Question of Difference. 2 Challenging Patriarchy, Decentring Heterosexuality: Radical and Revolutionary Feminisms. 3 Lesbian Difference, Feminism and Queer Theory. 4 Psychoanalysis and Difference. 5 The Production and Subversion of Gender: Postmodern Approaches. 6 Class. 7 Race, Racism and the Problem of Whiteness. 8 Beyond Eurocentrism: Feminism and the Politics of Difference in a Global Frame. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Y? -- National Forum on People's Differences

This forum, the first and only of its kind, gives you a way to ask people from other ethnic or cultural backgrounds the questions you've always been too embarrassed or uncomfortable to ask them. If you have the courage to ask, Y? will evaluate your question, consider it for posting and try to get someone from that background to answer. If needed, Y? will get an expert to weigh in.

You'll also have a chance to answer questions related to your own demographic background.

Y? The National Forum On People's Differences has no agenda or cause, other than to get people talking across their differences - a running dialogue Y? believes most of us would like to see occur but that has yet to fully unfold through the conventional media.

Rap, Black Rage, and Racial Difference

Essay by Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, Enculturation, Vol. 2, No. 2, Spring 1999

Excerpt:

Rap music has emerged as one of the most distinctive and controversial music genres of the past decade. A significant part of hip hop culture, rap articulates the experiences and conditions of African-Americans living in a spectrum of marginalized situations ranging from racial stereotyping and stigmatizing to struggle for survival in violent ghetto conditions. In this cultural context, rap provides a voice to the voiceless, a form of protest to the oppressed, and a mode of alternative cultural style and identity to the marginalized. Rap is thus not only music to dance and party to, but a potent form of cultural identity. It has become a powerful vehicle for cultural political expression...

We Need Resources

We are looking for essays, websites, etc., that play with the notion of difference, the question of difference, patriarchal marginalization, decentring heterosexuality, queer difference, lesbian difference, class difference, race difference, etc.  If you know of such, or have written on such, please let us know!

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