Twenty Years On

Ann Curthoys' (1991) article, ‘The Three Body Problem: feminism and chaos theory’, called for a feminist theory that takes the problem of colonialism, cultural and ethnic diversity as a central rather than an added on, or marginal issue. This article outlines Curthoys' key points in the context of feminist debates of the 1980s and early 1990s and reflects on the ‘race/ethnicity’ stream at the twentieth-anniversary conference of the Women's History Network, 2011. It concludes by outlining three recent attempts to work with feminism's ‘three body problem’ based on the author's work in feminist historical anthropology in settler colonial Australia

Colonialism · Ethnic group · Feminism · Feminist theory · Political science · Sociology · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · History · Law