This book provides a path-breaking study of the genesis, growth, gains, and dilemmas of women's movements in countries throughout the world. Its focus is on the global South, where women's movements have engaged in complex negotiations with national and international forces. It challenges widely held assumptions about the Western origins and character of local feminisms. The authors locate women's movements within the terrain from which they emerged by exploring their relationships with the state, civil society, and other social movements.This fully revised second edition contains six new...

Drawing on case studies of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal and Shramik Sangathana in Maharashtra, this ground-breaking new work examines Indian women's political activism. Investigating institutional change at the state level and protest at the village level, Amrita Basu traces the paths of two kinds of political activism among these women. With insights gleaned from extensive interviews with activists, government officials, and ordinary men and women, she finds that militancy has been fueled by pronounced sexual and class cleavages combined with potentially rancorous...

Drawing on case studies of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal and Shramik Sangathana in Maharashtra, this ground-breaking new work examines Indian women's political activism. Investigating institutional change at the state level and protest at the village level, Amrita Basu traces the paths of two kinds of political activism among these women. With insights gleaned from extensive interviews with activists, government officials, and ordinary men and women, she finds that militancy has been fueled by pronounced sexual and class cleavages combined with potentially rancorous...