This collection demonstrates the diversity of women's struggles against problems such as racism, violence, homophobia, focusing on the complex ways that gender, culture, race-ethnicity and class shape women's political consciousness in the US.

This volume brings together essays of remarkable variety and fresh insight by leading feminists from Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America, Europe and Scandinavia. With clear-eyed realism and passionate optimism these articles raise crucial historical, organizational, ethical, conceptual, strategic and practical issues facing feminists today. The personal accounts, political speeches and academic articles collected here reveal a vibrant and multifaceted transnational feminist community redefining wealth, work, peace, democracy, sexuality, family, human rights, development, community, and citizenship. They provide a sense of inter-related issues being addressed at local, national, regional and global levels in generative ways which both honor local and global movements.

In the late 2010s, the United States experienced a period of widespread silencing. Protests of unsafe drinking water have been met with tear gas; national park employees, environmentalists, and scientists have been ordered to stop communicating publicly. Advocates for gun control are silenced even as mass shootings continue. Expressed dissent to political power is labeled as “fake news.” DREAMers, Muslims, Trans military members, women, black bodies, the LGBTQI+ community, Latina/o/x communities, rape survivors, sex workers, and immigrants have all been systematically silenced. During this difficult time and despite such restrictions, advocates and allies persist and resist, forming dialogues that call to repel inequality in its many forms. Addressing the oppression of women of color, white women, women with (dis)abilities, and LBTQI+ individuals across cultures and contexts remains a central posit of feminist struggle and requires “a distinctly feminist politics of recognition.” However, as second wave debates about feminism have revealed, there is no single way to express a feminist politic. Rather, living feminist politics requires individual interpretation and struggle, collective discussion and disagreement, and recognizing difference among women as well as points of convergence in feminist struggle. Badass Feminist Politics includes a diverse range of engaging feminist political projects to not only analyze the work being done on the ground but provide an overview for action that can be taken on by those seeking to engage in feminist activism in their own communities. Contributors included here are working for equality and equity and resisting violent, racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and sexist language and action during this tension-filled political moment. Collectively, the book explores what it means to live and communicate feminist politics in everyday choices and actions, and how we can facilitate learning by analyzing these examples. Taking up current issues and new theoretical perspectives, the authors offer novel perspectives into what it means to live feminist politics. This book is a testament to resilience, resistance, communication, and forward thinking about what these themes all mean for new feminist agendas. Learning how to resist oppressive structures through words and actions is particularly important for students. Badass Feminist Politics features scholars from non-dominant groups taking up issues of marginalization and oppression, which can help people accomplish their social justice goals of inclusivity on the ground and in the classroom.

There are more than 80 Commissions on the Status of Women operating at the local community level in the United States. These advisory citizen's groups work under the premise that women must represent themselves in the politics and policy-making of the community. This book examines the performance of the commissions, focusing primarily on the perspectives of women activists and high-level public officials. An in-depth study of five commissions deemed 'successful' is presented, and the author concludes by analyzing the strategies for change available to the women's movement at the community level

Amid the longest-running economic boom in American history and despite the emergence of a significant black middle class, the lot of low-income black people in general-and black women in particular-seems more troubling than ever. Their plight, Sheila Radford-Hill argues in this book, is directly related to the diminution of black women's traditional power as culture bearers and community builders. A cogent critique of feminist theory and practice, Further to Fly identifies the failure of feminism to connect with the social realities it should seek to explain, in particular the decline of black women's empowerment. Further to Fly searches out the causes and effects of this decline, describing the ways in which, since the 1960s, black women have been stripped of their traditional status as agents of change in the community-and how, as a result, the black community has faltered. Radford-Hill explores the shortcomings of second-wave black and white feminism, revealing how their theoretical underpinnings have had unintended (and often unacknowledged) negative consequences for black women's lives and their communities.While acknowledging that African American women have made significant contributions to the black struggle for justice in America, Radford-Hill argues that more needs to be done. She combines social criticism and critical analysis to argue that black women must revive their legacy of activism and reclaim the tradition of nurturing in the black community, proposing specific tactics that can be used to revive the support networks that help determine the obligations of community members and guide how people interact on an everyday level. As a deft account of genesis and effects of black women's diminishing power, and as a sobering analysis of the devastating blunders of feminist theory and practice, this work makes a compelling argument for an "authentic feminism," one that aggressively connects the realities of women's experiences, needs, aspirations, and responsibilities.

Throughout history, women have participated in and sometimes initiated rebellions to defend the welfare of their family, community, class, race or ethnic group. This volume presents original research on women's activism in Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America. It explores how women have advanced social change and their influence on, and response to, existing transformations in society. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the authors examine women's activities and conditions in diverse social and political contexts, from revolutionary societies, to status quo societies, to societies in decline. With its primary focus on agency and social change, this book deconstructs patriarchal discourses and unearths aspects of female agency in an array of cultural, historical and geopolitical contexts. Chapters on movements in China, Japan, Australia, Croatia, Russia and a range of other countries both contribute to our understanding of change in those societies and seek to locate women at the center of politically aware movements. Although not exclusively a book about feminist activism, this essential collection is motivated by the feminist desire to restore to history a range of women's experiences. This book introduces new ways of thinking across boundaries, identities and complexities in a still essentially patriarchal world. It will be of great interest to students and researchers in the fields of gender studies, activism and comparative politics.

Feminism and the Politics of Childhood offers an innovative and critical exploration of perceived commonalities and conflicts between women and children and, more broadly, between various forms of feminism and the politics of childhood. This unique collection of 18 chapters brings into dialogue authors from a range of geographical contexts, social science disciplines, activist organisations, and theoretical perspectives. The wide variety of subjects include refugee camps, care labour, domestic violence and childcare and education. Chapter authors focus on local contexts as well as their global interconnections, and draw on diverse theoretical traditions such as poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, posthumanism, postcolonialism, political economy, and the ethics of care. Together the contributions offer new ways to conceptualise relations between women and children, and to address injustices faced by both groups. Praise for Feminism and the Politics of Childhood: Friends or Foes? ‘This book is genuinely ground-breaking.’ ‒ Val Gillies, University of Westminster ‘Feminism and the Politics of Childhood: Friends or Foes? asks an impossible question, and then casts prismatic light on all corners of its impossibility.’ ‒ Cindi Katz, CUNY ‘This provocative and stimulating publication comes not a day too soon.’ ‒ Gerison Lansdown, Child to Child ‘A smart, innovative, and provocative book.’ ‒ Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Syracuse University ‘This volume raises and addresses issues so pressing that it is surprising they are not already at the heart of scholarship.’ ‒ Ann Phoenix, UCL