Who made Adam Smith’s dinner? Feminist critiques of the lnternational Political Economy Feminist economic theorists throw the basis of traditional economic thinking, the idea of rational economic man, into doubt. Traditional economics is based upon two main patriarchal assumptions. It is based upon the way in which men in western societies, and in their institutions […]

In this paper, presented at the ‘One is not born a woman’ conference, celebrating 50th anniversary of Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex organised by Fruaenmediaturm at Cologne, 22-24 October, 1999, Sheila Jeffreys argues that a massive obstacle to women’s equality lies in the way in which sex under male supremacy is constructed out of the […]

This article by Sheila Jeffreys, published in Feminism & Psychology vol. 10(4) 2000, analyses the developing industry of body modification, in which cutting, tattooing and piercing are carried out in studios for profit. It seeks to offer a feminist understanding of this industry which places it on a continuum of harmful cultural practices that include […]

There is a need for revolutionary feminism for two very important reasons – one is the liberal takeover of the women’s liberation movement, and the other is the grave lack of theory in the movement. Paper presented at the 1977 national Women’s Liberation Movement Conference in London by Sheila Jeffreys and re-printed in the Socialist […]

There has been a rise in the political power of organised religions in both western countries and the non-west in the last two decades. There has been desecularisation of the public sphere in countries such as the UK and Australia which takes the form of deliberate government policy both to consult with ‘faith communities’ and […]

Kate Millett’s book Sexual Politics was pivotal for the developing second wave feminist movement. It was regarded as very important both by feminists at the time and by the media. Time magazine labelled Millett as the Mao Tse-Tung of women’s liberation, but the book is not as well known today as might be expected for […]

This article argues that women in the military are in double jeopardy. They face the danger of rape from their male colleagues as well as the ordinary dangers of being killed or wounded by the enemy. They are used to send messages from one masculine military to another in their very bodies. This is particularly […]

Feminist theorizing on heterosexuality has taken place in rather a stop/start fashion over the last 20 years. The punishments which are regularly visited upon those who seek to draw heterosexuality out of the protective camouflage of “nature” or “just the way things are”, and into the spotlight of political analysis can be considerably – and […]

The history of sex in the last 100 years has generally been represented as a triumphant march from Victorian prudery into the light of sexual freedom. From a feminist perspective the picture is different. During the last wave of feminism women, often represented as prudes and puritans by historians, waged a massive campaign to transform […]