Who Are You Not Citing? Feminist Scholars Every Student Should Know

As part of our Week of Female Scholars in Celebration of International Women’s Day on 8th March, 2026. 

Working on a paper?

As the end of the academic year approaches, so are theses deadlines, and with them, the familiar scramble for “reliable” sources. So make sure to take a moment to look at your bibliography. If it is dominated by the same canonical (and often male) authors, this is not just a coincidence, but a reflection of how knowledge is traditionally structured, taught, and reproduced. 

At the Maastricht Journal of Feminism, we invite you to ask yourself the question: who are you not citing?

If you are looking for female scholars who revolutionised how we understand power, identity, and inequality, here are five feminist thinkers you should be citing, no matter if you study law, medicine, sciences, psychology, economics, arts, engineering, business or literature. 

Read until the end to find out whether these scholar’s works can be found at Maastricht University’s online library!

Take a look at our Feminist Scholar series on our instagram!

Simone de Beauvoir - The Original “This Isn’t Natural” Thinker

If your work engages with gender roles, identity, or social norms, even indirectly, then we suggest Simone de Beauvoir’s foundational work.

Born in 1908 in Paris, she was a French philosopher, writer, and feminist. She had strong ties to academia and scholarship, attending Sorbonne University to study philosophy and later going on to teach the subject, while publishing several books that have since become foundational works in feminist thought. 

"One is not born, but rather becomes a woman."

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

One notable example is Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, which is widely regarded as one of the most influential feminist texts of the twentieth century. In the book, Beuavoir examines the historical, cultural, and philosophical roots of women’s oppression. Beauvoir’s central claim that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”, remains one of the most cited formulations in feminist theory. 

Her analysis of women as “the Other” revealed how male experience has historically been constructed as the universal norm, while women are defined relationally and subordinately. It is argued that this hierarchy is neither natural nor biologically inevitable, but, rather, a social and cultural construction reinforced through institutions, traditions, and societal practices. 

For students, Beauvoir offers more than just theory, providing a method that questions what appears as natural. 

Kimberlé Crenshaw - The Reason “Just Gender” is not Enough

If your argument addresses inequalities in a broader sense, but isolates categories like race, gender, or class, then Crenshaw is relevant to help you go into more depth. 

Kimberlé Crenshaw, born 1959 in Ohio, is an American civil rights activist, legal scholar, and professor. She earned a B.A. from Cornell, a J.D. from Harvard University and an LL.M. from the University of Wisconsin. Crenshaw currently serves as a professor at Columbia Law School and the UCLA School of Law. Her teaching and research focus on critical race theory, Black feminist theory, and the intersections of race, racism, and the law.

"When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when anti-racism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other, and both interests lose."

Intersectionality

Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the concept of intersectionality in 1989 to explain how systems of power, such as racism and sexism, interact and overlap in shaping people’s experiences of discrimination. When legal and academic frameworks isolate these categories, they render certain experiences invisible. 

While studying legal cases involving workplace discrimination, she noticed that the law often treated race and gender as separate categories. This meant that Black women, whose experiences involved both racial and gender discrimination simultaneously, frequently fell through the gaps of legal protection.

This insight extends far beyond law. In medicine, disparities in care cannot be understood through gender alone; race, migration status, and disability intersect to produce distinct outcomes. For instance, women subjected to forced sterilisation experience discrimination rooted in both disability and gender. In economics, labour inequalities are structured by multiple, overlapping hierarchies.

Understanding discrimination through an intersectional lens has become essential for capturing the multiple and overlapping forms of oppression that women face. Their experiences cannot be fully understood if these factors are considered separately, as the intersection of these identities creates a unique, inseparable and compounded form of marginalisation.

Without the analytical concept of intersectionality, your research as a student risks being incomplete at best, and exclusionary at worst. 

Catharine A. MacKinnon - Power Not “Misconduct”

If your work touches on harassment, institutional inequality, or power dynamics, Catharine MacKinnon fundamentally reshaped how these issues are understood in law. 

MacKinnon, born in 1964 in the United States, is a leading feminist legal scholar, lawyer, and activist. She is currently a professor at the University of Michigan, and taught at other major universities, including Harvard Law School. She is known for developing legal theories explaining how gender inequality and violence against women are embedded in legal and social systems. Her work influenced international legal developments, including recognition of sexual violence as a human rights violation and war crime in international tribunals. 

"Power is being able to say complete and utter nonsense and have it be believed, powerlessness is where no matter how much cogent evidence and proof one has, to not be believed."

Sexual Harassment of Working Women - Sexual Harassment as Discrimination

MacKinnon’s most famous contribution was arguing that sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination, rather than just inappropriate behaviour. Before her work, showcased in Sexual Harassment of Working Women, many legal systems treated harassment as a personal issue, misconduct, or workplace conflict. Sexual harassment is a structural form of gender inequality that reinforces women’s subordination. 

This reconceptualisation had profound legal consequences, influencing U.S. anti-discrimination law and international human rights frameworks, including recognition of sexual violence as a violation of human rights. 

For students, MacKinnon’s work encourages them to ask: is this an isolated incident or a manifestation of power?

bell hooks - Feminism That Includes Everyone

If your paper is too narrow, bell hooks expand it, reinforcing that one cannot understand sexism without race and class. Her work is highly relevant on any topic involving intersectionality. 

bell hooks (a pen name intended to be lowercase), born Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the United States, was a feminist scholar, cultural critic, and social activist. She studied English literature at Stanford University, later earning a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a doctorate from the University of California. She wrote widely on the intersections of race, gender, and class, becoming a key voice in feminist theory, developing a new branch focused on the interconnected nature of race, gender, and class oppression. Drawing from black feminist thought and her own experiences growing up in the segregated American South, she argued that feminism must address multiple systems of oppression simultaneously. 

"Women will only be truly sexually liberated when we arrive at a place where we can see ourselves as having sexual value and agency irrespective of whether or not we are the objects of male desire."

Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism - Intersectionality

A central idea in her work was her critique of what she saw as the exclusion of black and working class women from mainstream feminist movements. In Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, she examined how slavery, racism, and sexism historically shaped the lives of black women, arguing that their experiences revealed the limits of feminist theories that focused primarily on gender while ignoring race and class.

hooks also developed a broader concept of feminism as a movement to end all forms of domination, not only sexism. She emphasised the role of culture, education, and everyday relationships in either reproducing or challenging inequality. In works such as Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, she called for a more inclusive feminist politics rooted in solidarity, community, and social transformation.

For students, hooks offers both critique and direction, where feminism must be inclusive or it fails its own purpose. 

Andrea Dworkin - The Most Controversial Voice You Should Still Read

Andrea Dworkin remains one of the most controversial figures in feminist theory, and it is for that reason that she is worth reading. 

Andrea Dworkin, born 1946 in Camden, New Jersey, was an American radical feminist writer, activist, and theorist. Dworkin studied literature at Bennington College and became involved in antiwar activism during the Vietnam War era. After spending several years in Europe, including time in Amsterdam, she returned to the United States and became a prominent voice in the radical feminist movement. Dworkin wrote extensively on violence against women, pornography, and male dominance in society.

"Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships."

Radical Feminism

Dworkin was a central figure in the development of radical feminist theory. Her work focused on how patriarchal power is maintained through violence, sexuality, and cultural representations of women. Drawing on her experiences in activism and her analysis of social institutions, she argued that male dominance is a structural system embedded in law, culture, and everyday life.

A central element of Dworkin’s theory was her critique of pornography. She argued that pornography does not simply depict sex but constructs and reinforces a system in which women are subordinated, objectified, and subjected to violence. According to Dworkin, these representations normalise inequality between men and women and shape broader social attitudes about women’s bodies and sexual availability.

Beyond pornography, Dworkin’s radical feminist framework emphasised issues such as sexual violence, prostitution, and the social conditioning of gender roles. She argued that these practices and institutions function together to sustain patriarchal power. Through her writing and activism, often in collaboration with Catharine MacKinnon, she helped develop radical feminism as a body of theory that understands women’s oppression as systemic and deeply embedded in social and cultural structures.

While her conclusions are widely debated, engaging with Dworkin sharpens analytical clarity. Whether you agree or disagree with her, her work forces you to confront uncomfortable questions about consent, representation, and power, which is academically valuable for students. 

Works of These Scholars in UM Library:

Simone de Beauvoir

• Beauvoir, S. de. (2011). The second sex (H. M. Parshley, Trans.). Vintage. (Original work published 1949).

Kimberlé Crenshaw

• Crenshaw, K. (1989). 'Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics.' University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167.

• Crenshaw, K. (1991). 'Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color.' Stanford Law Review, 42(6), 1241–1299.

Catharine A. MacKinnon

• MacKinnon, C. A. (1979). Sexual harassment of working women: A case of sex discrimination. Yale University Press.

• MacKinnon, C. A. (1989). Toward a feminist theory of the state. Harvard University Press.

bell hooks 

• hooks, b. (1981). Ain’t I a woman: Black women and feminism. South End Press.

• hooks, b. (1984). Feminist theory: From margin to center. South End Press.

• hooks, b. (1989). Talking back: Thinking feminism, thinking Black. South End Press.

• hooks, b. (1990). Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. South End Press.

• hooks, b. (2000). Feminism is for everybody: Passionate politics. South End Press.

Andrea Dworkin

• Dworkin, A., & Dufresne, M. (2018). Introduction to Intercourse. Nouvelles Questions Féministes, 37(1), 139.

• Dworkin, A. (2025). Pornography is a Civil Rights Issue for Women. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, 21.1.2, 55.