Publisher Description

Bringing together eighteen thought-provoking articles--most of them written especially for this volume--Women and Social Protest addresses a long-neglected area in social history and politics, showing how in recent years feminist social scientists have begun to reexamine women's involvement in social protest, the innovative forms this protest takes, and the impact of activism on women's lives. This timely and comprehensive anthology provides a much-needed forum for discussion of these topics, and shows how the sociological and political literature has long ignored, masked, or distorted the political activities of women, thus creating the stereotype of the "apolitical woman."Drawing on the work of sociologists, political scientists, historians, and experts in women's studies, Women and Social Protest explores four types of social protest--economic; racial, ethnic, and nationalistic; social nurturing and humanistic; and women's rights--considering a wealth of data from different eras and case studies from around the world. An introductory chapter provides a theoretical framework for the essays and helpful introductions to each section identify and elaborate general themes. In addition, a comprehensive bibliography offers the most extensive, up-to-date list of readings available. One of the first books to examine this important topic in detail, Women and Social Protest is a valuable contribution to the expanding field of social political theory.

This volume analyses and historicises the memory of 1968 (understood as a marker of an emerging will for social change around the turn of that decade, rather than as a particular calendar year), focusing on cultural memory of the powerful signifier '68' and women’s experience of revolutionary agency. After an opening interrogation of the historical and contemporary significance of "1968" – why does it still matter? how and why is it remembered in the contexts of gender and geopolitics? and what implications does it have for broader feminist understandings of women and revolutionary agency? – the contributors explore women’s historical involvement in "1968" in different parts of the world and the different ways in which women’s experience as victims and perpetrators of violence are remembered and understood. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of protest and violence in the fields of history, politics and international relations, sociology, cultural studies, and women’s studies.

Accommodating Protest explores the subculture framing the behavior of lower-middle-class women in Cairo and evaluates their constraints and opportunities in a rapidly changing city. MacLeod examines the conflicting ideologies of the lower middle class, where economic pressures compel women to enter the workplace, even as traditional values encourage them to stay home as wives and mothers.

"A must-read for scholars across a broad sweep of disciplines. Laurel Weldon weaves together skillfully the theoretical strands of gender equality policy, intersectionality, social movements, and representation in a multimethod/level comparative study that unequivocally places women's movements at the center of our understanding of democracy and social change." ---Amy G. Mazur, Washington State University "Laurel Weldon's When Protest Makes Policy expands and enriches our understanding of representation by stressing social movements as a primary avenue for the representation of marginalized groups. With powerful theory backed by persuasive analysis, it is a must-read for anyone interested in democracy and the representation of marginalized groups." ---Pamela Paxton, University of Texas at Austin "This is a bold and exciting book. There are many fine scholars who look at women's movements, political theorists who make claims about democracy, and policy analysts who do longitudinal treatments or cross-sectional evaluations of various policies. I know of no one, aside from Weldon, who is comfortable with all three of these roles." ---David Meyer, University of California, Irvine What role do social movements play in a democracy? Political theorist S. Laurel Weldon demonstrates that social movements provide a hitherto unrecognized form of democratic representation, and thus offer a significant potential for deepening democracy and overcoming social conflict. Through a series of case studies of movements conducted by women, women of color, and workers in the United States and other member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Weldon examines processes of representation at the local, state, and national levels. She concludes that, for systematically disadvantaged groups, social movements can be as important---sometimes more important---for the effective articulation of a group perspective as political parties, interest groups, or the physical presence of group members in legislatures. When Protest Makes Policy contributes to the emerging scholarship on civil society as well as the traditional scholarship on representation. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with advancing social cohesion and deepening democracy and inclusion as well as those concerned with advancing equality for women, ethnic and racial minorities, the working class, and poor people. S. Laurel Weldon is Professor of Political Science at Purdue University.

"Blewett challenges historians to incorporate gender analysis and a tradition of working women's protest into the history of the American labor movement." -- Georgia Historical Quarterly " Blewett's] detailed reconstruction of feminist perspectives in shoeworker protest and the divisions created by the competing loyalties to sisterhood and to working-class families is among the best available. . . . With works like this, it should be impossible to write about the American working class without including women." -- Historical Journal of Massachusetts "A highly stimulating and rewarding book." -- Journal of Interdisciplinary History

There is still much uncertainty about the role of nineteenth-century British women in social and political protest. As politics was a mane(tm)s world virtually all official accounts and statistics of popular protest deal only with the men involved. It is well known that women participated in food riots and mobilised support for Chartism, and as the dramatic changes in the economy during this period greatly increased the demand for womene(tm)s labour, this stimulated their widespread involvement in political and social agitation, particularly the parliamentary reform movement of 1819. First published in 1982, this book provides a descriptive account of the part played by women e" mainly working class women e" in a variety of social and political activities that can broadly be categorised as protest. It establishes the basic outlines and offers an interpretation of the course of events.

After decades of steady progress in terms of gender and sexual rights, several parts of Europe are facing new waves of resistance to a so-called ‘gender ideology’ or ‘gender theory’. Opposition to progressive gender equality is manifested in challenges to marriage equality, abortion, reproductive technologies, gender mainstreaming, sex education, sexual liberalism, transgender rights, antidiscrimination policies and even to the notion of gender itself. This book examines how an academic concept of gender, when translated by religious organizations such as the Roman Catholic Church, can become a mobilizing tool for, and the target of, social movements. How can we explain religious discourses about sex difference turning intro massive street demonstrations? How do forms of organization and protest travel across borders? Who are the actors behind these movements? This collection is a transnational and comparative attempt to better understand anti-gender mobilizations in Europe. It focuses on national manifestations in eleven European countries, including Russia, from massive street protests to forms of resistance such as email bombarding and street vigils. It examines the intersection of religious politics with rising populism and nationalistic anxieties in contemporary Europe.

This innovative, global feminist analysis of work and politics examines the diverse problems and related protests of women and men who labor to make ends meet in a rapidly-changing world. Using vivid examples from around the world, it reveals how 'globalization' is reshaping social institutions and lives. Fast Forward explores how businesses and states reshaped and redistributed work around the world during the last 30 years of 'globalization, ' often with adverse consequences. Within this fast-moving context, laboring people today engage in work outside of formal employment, try to obtain survival resources, mount a diverse array of often women-centered protests against firms and states, and try--on their own terms--to reinvent work and democratic political practices. Portraying the human face of global change, Fast Forward shows how overlapping social movements wrestle with economic and political marginalization, and initiate highly diverse, but related attempts to change the way the world works.

Feminist City is an ongoing experiment in living differently, living better, and living more justly in an urban world. We live in the city of men. Our public spaces are not designed for female bodies. There is little consideration for women as mothers, workers or carers. The urban streets often are a place of threats rather than community. Gentrification has made the everyday lives of women even more difficult. What would a metropolis for working women look like? A city of friendships beyond Sex and the City. A transit system that accommodates mothers with strollers on the school run. A public space with enough toilets. A place where women can walk without harassment. In Feminist City, through history, personal experience and popular culture Leslie Kern exposes what is hidden in plain sight: the social inequalities built into our cities, homes, and neighborhoods. Kern offers an alternative vision of the feminist city. Taking on fear, motherhood, friendship, activism, and the joys and perils of being alone, Kern maps the city from new vantage points, laying out an intersectional feminist approach to urban histories and proposes that the city is perhaps also our best hope for shaping a new urban future. It is time to dismantle what we take for granted about cities and to ask how we can build more just, sustainable, and women-friendly cities together.