What is a woman? And what does it mean to be a feminist today? In her first full-scale engagement with feminist theory since her internationally renowned Sexual/Textual Politics (1985), Toril Moi challenges the dominant trends in contemporary feminist and cultural thought, arguing for a feminism of freedom inspired by Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. Written in a clear and engaging style What is a Woman? brings together two brand new book-length theoretical interventions, Moi's work on Freud and Bourdieu, and her studies of desire and knowledge in literature.
In the controversial...

This affordable, compact edition, designed specially for use in university courses, consists of two of the most celebrated essays from Toril Moi's highly-acclaimed What Is a Woman?
What is a woman? Does it make sense to think of a woman as the combination of sex and gender? Is "I am a woman" the same kind of declaration as "I am a man"? What does it mean to speak "as a woman"? In these essays Moi rethinks the contribution of Simone de Beauvoir to feminist theory, and shows that The Second Sex, properly read, offers inspiring solutions to urgent contemporary problems. By suggesting that we...

What are the political implications of a feminist critical practice? How do the problems of the literary text relate to the priorities and perspectives of feminist politics as a whole?
Sexual/Textual Politics addresses these fundamental questions and examines the strengths and limitations of the two main strands in feminist criticism, the Anglo-American and the French, paying particular attention to the works of Cixous, Irigaray and Kristeva. In the years since publication this book has rightly attained the status of a classic. Written for readers with little knowledge of the...