The Challenge Of Local Feminisms : Women's Movements In Global Perspective

ISBN-13: 9780813326283 / Angielski / Miękka / 1995 / 512 str.

Amrita Basu; C. Elizabeth McGrory

Opis

This pathbreaking book provides for the first time an overview of the genesis, growth, gains, and dilemmas of women's movements worldwide. Unlike most of the literature, which focuses on the industrialized Western world, this volume devotes greater attention to the postcolonial states of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The book challenges the assumptions that feminism can transcend national differences and, conversely, that women's movements are shaped and circumscribed by national levels of development. All the authors reject the notion, proposed by its detractors and champions alike, that feminism is of middle-class origins and Western inspiration. Instead they seek to locate women's movements within the terrain from which they emerge.Virtually all the authors are from the countries or communities about which they write; the few exceptions are women who have spent lengthy periods studying and living in the region. Most are scholars, often in women's studies, and many are closely associated with the movements they describe. Thus, these writers share a commitment to the substantive concerns as well as the collective processes of women's movements. As a key book for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, this volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in the global scope and implications of feminism.

Spis treści

Foreword -- Introduction -- Asia -- Discovering the Positive Within the Negative: The Women's Movement in a Changing China -- From Chipko to Sati: The Contemporary Indian Women's Movement -- Men in Seclusion, Women in Public: Rokeya's Dream and Women's Struggles in Bangladesh -- Rebirthing Babaye: The Women's Movement in the Philippines -- Africa and the Middle East -- The Dawn of a New Day: Redefining South African Feminism -- The Many Faces of Feminism in Namibia -- The Mother of Warriors and Her Daughters: The Women's Movement in Kenya -- Wifeism and Activism: The Nigerian Women's Movement -- Claiming Feminism, Claiming Nationalism: Women's Activism in the Occupied Territories -- Latin America -- Out of the Kitchens and onto the Streets: Women's Activism in Peru -- Democracy in the Country and in the Home: The Women's Movement in Chile -- Brazilian Feminism and Women's Movements: A Two-Way Street -- Building Bridges: The Growth of Popular Feminism in Mexico -- Russia, Europe, and the United States -- Democracy Without Women Is No Democracy: Women's Struggles in Postcommunist Russia -- Finding a Voice: Women in Postcommunist Central Europe -- Extending the Boundaries of Citizenship: Women's Movements of Western Europe -- Feminism Lives: Building a Multicultural Women's Movement in the United States -- Photo Credits

O autorze

Amrita Basu is professor of political science and women's and gender studies at Amherst College. C. Elizabeth McGrory works as a consultant on reproductive health and women's rights.