Women and Politics in the Third World is the first comprehensive textbook on women's political activities in the third world. It provides a feminist analytical perspective on the specific forms of resistance, organisation and negotiation by women in third world states. Using case studies, the book focuses on difference as a theoretical basis for investigating feminine political activism. Though Western analysts have attributed weakness to terms such as motherhood, marriage and domesticity, as choices made by non-Western women, the contributors show that such strategies are used by...

This book argues that it is the fluidity of women's identities that enables them to bridge the gender divides and roles ascribed to them by society and culture with those that they have chosen for themselves whilst retaining a sense of their self.

This book examines the contradictions between the prevailing ideologies and cultural practices and the economic interests of women in poor households in Asia. Here the primacy of economic needs necessitates that all members of the household, women, men and children engage in income generating employment; yet at the same time prevailing ideologies often impose restrictions on women's work. Thus caught in the poverty trap they face conflicting choices between survival needs and social acceptability. This collection of essays demonstrate the differing or complementary roles played by different...