Race Sex and Gender in Contemporary Women's Theatre: The Construction of 'Woman'

Focusing on dramatic works by contemporary British and American playwrights, in conjunction with feminist political and theoretical texts, this book discusses feminist constructions of the category "Woman". It traces the ways in which mainstream feminist representations of gender are complicit with dominant racial and heterosexual ideologies. The plays addressed generate valuable insights as to how interpretations of "Woman" structure the political field and determine the standards used for interpreting Woman-as-Wife/Mother, Woman at Work, and Woman as Object and Subject.

A conclusion details where women of difference should locate themselves for resistance and how feminists might go about establishing a progressive feminist politics and a women's movement that is able to accommodate differences of race, class, and sexuality.

The chapters explore: how feminist theories on mothering collude with dominant ones in maintaining motherhood as a category of sexual and racial privilege

the different ways in which black, white, lesbian and heterosexual women negotiate their roles outside and inside the home

the intersection of race and sexuality in the construction of "Woman-as-Object" and the relation of gender, race, and rape

how bi-racial and lesbian women negotiate multiple identities

the construction of butch/fem lesbian sexual/subject identities.