Cambridge Studies in Gender and Politics: The Logics of Gender Justice: State Action on Women's Rights Around the World

When and why do governments promote women's rights? Through comparative analysis of state action in seventy countries from 1975 to 2005, this book shows how different women's rights issues involve different histories, trigger different conflicts, and activate different sets of protagonists. Change on violence against women and workplace equality involves a logic of status politics: feminist movements leverage international norms to contest women's subordination. Family law, abortion, and contraception, which challenge the historical claim of religious groups to regulate kinship and reproduction, conform to a logic of doctrinal politics, which turns on relations between religious groups and the state. Publicly-paid parental leave and child care follow a logic of class politics, in which the strength of Left parties and overall economic conditions are more salient. The book reveals the multiple and complex pathways to gender justice, illuminating the opportunities and obstacles to social change for policymakers, advocates, and others seeking to advance women's rights.

1. Introduction: states and gender justice; 2. Feminist mobilization and status politics: combatting violence against women; 3. Governing women's legal status at work; 4. Doctrinal politics: religious power, the state, and family law; 5. Class politics: family leave and child care policy; 6. Reproductive rights: class, status, and doctrinal politics; 7. The multiple logics of gender justice; 8. Conclusion.