Joan W. Scott Book order (chronological)

When feminists argued for political rights in the context of liberal democracy, they insisted that the differences between men and women were irrelevant for citizenship. Yet by acting on behalf of women, they introduced the very idea of difference they sought to eliminate. Scott reads feminist history in terms of this paradox.

Integrating the discoveries of the new feminist scholarship with the main themes of Western civilization, this text examines women's influence on, and daily connections with, the religious, political, economic, scientific, social, and cultural changes that have transformed our world during the last half-millennium.