About the Book

The present book is an attempt to project the challenges posed by feminist scholars to various disciplines of Humanities and Social Sciences for their inherent androcentric bias and logocentrism. The book further highlights the contribution of Third World feminism in dismantling all sexist assumptions and misconstrued values that have ruled the disciplines all along. It also brings to fore the Third World challenges to the essentialist, universalist and monolithic assumptions of Western feminist discourse. This book shall prove to be a veritable resource for scholars, researchers and students interested in Feminist Studies, Political Theory, Gender Studies and all other subjects of Humanities and Social Sciences.

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Contents

1.    Historical Background: Development of Feminist Theory in the West
2.    Contesting Meanings: Feminist Explorations in the Realm of Philosophy
3.    Unearthing Androcentrism: Feminist Excavations in the Realm of History
4.    Resisting Logocentrism: Feminist Challenges in Sociology
5.    Rupturing the ‘Masculine’: Restoring the ‘Feminine’ in Psychology
6.    Dismantling Metanarratives: Feminist Interventions in Economics
7.    Bridging the Public-Private Gap: Feminist Voices in Political Science
8.    Deconstructing Western Feminist Theory: Authorizing Third World Women’s Voices
9.    Conclusion

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About the Author / Editor

Chandrakala Padia is Professor of Political Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. Earlier, she served as the Director, Centre for Women’s Studies and Development, and also as Chairperson, UGC Standing Committee on Women’s Studies. As an acclaimed feminist scholar, she won the prestigious D.P. Mukherjee award for her contribution to feminist theory. As a Fulbright scholar at University of Texas, Austin, USA and as an ICSSR fellow and McMaster fellow, she extensively worked on the unpublished papers of Bertrand Russell. As a recipient of Shastri Indo-Canadian fellowship, she devoted herself to the study of aborigines in Canada in the wider context of human rights. In her quest for understanding the problems of women around the globe, she undertook a major project on Postmodernism and French Feminist Thinkers with the help of Indo-French Fellowship. Her cross-cultural explorations in the field of women’s studies made her edit an important series with the title Women in India’s Intellectual Tradition along with two other edited volumes Feminism Tradition and Modernity and Women in Dharmashastras: A Phenomenological and Critical Analysis. She has extensively lectured throughout Europe and North America. She is the author of much acclaimed book Liberty and Social Transformation: A Study in Bertrand Russell’s Political Thought along with several articles published in national and international journals.

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