Contact info

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies by email moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

Research process

Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.

Selected encyclopedias and handbooks

Use encyclopedias, dictionaries and handbooks to obtain definitions and overviews of a topic and also to identify key authors.

• A-Z of gender and sexuality : from Ace to Ze
• Bloomsbury handbook of 21st-century feminist theory
• Encyclopedia of feminist theories
• Encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender & queer culture
• Encyclopedia of sex and gender
• Greenwood encyclopedia of LGBT issues worldwide
• The Oxford encyclopedia of Islam and women
• Routledge handbook of contemporary feminism [2019]
• Routledge handbook of sexuality, health and rights
• Routledge research companion to geographies of sex and sexualities
• Rowman & Littlefield handbook of transgender studies
• Sage encyclopedia of LGBTQ studies
• Sage eReference
• Transgender : a reference handbook

For more, try Background information

Find journal articles

How to find journal articles

Search for journal articles on your topic using the databases, below.  From within the database, use the "Get@SFU" icon will to find copies of articles which are not full-text within the database.  If SFU Library does not provide access, then request a copy through the Library's Inter-Library-loans Service by filling out the Citation finder/ILL form.

• Women's Studies International -- Start with this database and then search other databases.
• Academic Search Premier -- (multidisciplinary) covers many GSWS journals in full text.Limit your search results to "Academic" or "Scholarly" sources.
• ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science.
• Social Sciences Full Text - indexes social sciences journals including sociology and anthropology
• CBCA Complete -- Canadian Business & Current Affairs (CBCA) Complete.  Limit your search results to "Academic" or "Scholarly" sources.
• Canada Commons (formerly, Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris) - full text of public policy documents
• Canadian Newsstream - for articles from Canadian newspapers

Find books

The Library Catalogue provides access to books, journal articles, videos, government documents and much more.  To limit the search results to "books", use the filter (left-hand column in search results) to "resource type" of "books."

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue, either the Basic or the Advanced search

Note: In the searches below, you can limit search results to "Online Resources only" and "Resource type" of "Books". You can further limit by using "Subject" (left-hand column)

• "post-third wave feminis*"
• "postcolonial feminis*"
• "postmodern feminis*"
• "postmodern theor*" AND feminis*
• "post third wave feminis*" OR post-feminism
• F-Word
• (sexualit* OR mascuilin* OR feminit*) AND (theor* OR debat* OR issue*)
• femini* AND theor*
• "second wave femini*"
• "third wave feminis*"
• (white AND feminis*) OR "western feminis*"
• Japan* AND Feminis*
• [name of country] AND feminis*
• (women OR gender) AND feminis* AND (theor* or perspective* or framework)
• (trans OR transgender* OR queer*) AND feminis* AND (theor* or perspective* or framework)
• masculinit* AND (theor* or perspective* or framework)
  • Results limited to "subject" of "gender studies"
• zines
• zines AND (feminis* OR girl* OR women)

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Use pulldown menu and select, "Source Types" as "Books"

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Selected books

• Ain't I a woman : Black women and feminism
• Beyoncé in formation : remixing Black feminism
• Black Girl Magic Beyond the Hashtag : Twenty-First-Century Acts of Self-Definition
• Challenge of local feminisms : women's movements in global perspective
• Debating Modern Masculinities : Change, Continuity, Crisis?
• eGirls, eCitizens
• Feminism without borders decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity / Chandra Talpade Mohanty
• Feminist Erasures : Challenging Backlash Culture
• Feminist theory : from margin to center / by Bell Hooks
• Gender outlaw : on men, women, and the rest of us / Kate Bornstein
• Gender work ; feminism after neoliberalism
• Girl zines : making media, doing feminism
• Girls, Autobiography, Media: Gender and Self-Mediation in Digital Economies
• Global currents in gender and feminisms : Canadian and international perspectives
• Global Masculinities and Manhood
• Global Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage A Neo-Institutional Approach
• Introduction to transgender studies
• Masculinities in the making : from the local to the global
• New Blood Third-Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation
• Pedagogy of Queer TV
• Postfeminism: Cultural Texts and Theories
• Postfeminist digital cultures : femininity, social media, and self-representation
• Postfeminism : cultural texts and theories
• Radical feminism : feminist activism in movement
• Separate roads to feminism : Black, Chicana, and White feminist movements in America's second wave
• Talking back : thinking feminist, thinking black / bell hooks
• Teaching critical thinking : practical wisdom / bell hooks
• Theorizing Intersectionality and Sexuality
• Third wave feminism and the politics of gender in late modernity
• Transfeminist Perspectives in and beyond Transgender and Gender Studies
• Transgender studies reader / edited by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle
• What Gender Is, What Gender Does
• Women's activism and "second wave" feminism : transnational histories [print]

Browse by author and subject

Browse by author

Catalogue Search / Browse then change "Title" to "Author" and then enter Author's Last name and then the First Name

• Gay, Roxane
• Enke, Anne 1964
• Hooks, Bell, 1952

Browse using subject headings

• African American Feminists
• Cyberfeminism
• Femininity
• Feminine Identity -- See Women Identity
• Feminism
• Feminism - [name of country/geographic region]
• Feminism - Canada
• Feminism -- Developing countries
• Femininity
• Feminism -- Developing countries
• Feminist theory
• Feminists
• Feminists -- [name of country]
• Masculinity
• Second-wave feminism
  • works on the period of feminist thought and activity that began in the 1960s and focused on economic and social equality for women, and on the   
     rights of female minorities
• Third-wave feminism
                 works on the period of feminist thought and activity that began in the 1990s and focused on expanding the common definitions of gender and
                 sexuality by encompassing such additional themes as queer theory, transgender politics, womanism, ecofeminism, libertarian feminism, etc.
• Transsexualism
• Women Identity
• Zines

Primary documents databases

• Archives of Sexuality & Gender
  A collection of primary sources on social, political, health, and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities around the world since 1940.  Rare and unique content from newsletters, organisational papers, government documents, manuscripts, pamphlets, and other types of primary sources sheds light on the gay rights movement, activism, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and more.
  • Use "Advanced" search for more flexibility in searching.  Use "topic finder" to search or topics.  E.g. film or cinema or "motion picture*"
• Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 
  Books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies that document the different facets of women's activism in public life.

Feminist theory websites

• Feminist Theory Website - "provides research materials" - fields within feminism; national and ethnic feminisms; Individual feminists
• Women’s Studies: Feminist Theory

Library guides

• Library Research Skills [interactive tutorial]
• Popular versus scholarly sources [video]
• What is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal?
• What is plagiarism? [guide]
• Evaluating sources
• How to Write an Annotated Bibliography
• Referencing and citation management software For help, please contact us at citation-managers@sfu.ca 
• Tutorials
• Student Learning Commons & Writing help

Writing help

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.