Here Christina Wolbrecht boldly demonstrates how the Republican and Democratic parties have helped transform, and have been transformed by, American public debate and policy on women's rights. She begins by showing the evolution of the positions of both parties on women's rights over the past five decades. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Republicans were slightly more favorable than Democrats, but by the early 1980s, the parties had polarized sharply, with Democrats supporting, and Republicans opposing, such policies as the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights. Wolbrecht not only traces the development of this shift in the parties' relative positions--focusing on party platforms, the words and actions of presidents and presidential candidates, and the behavior of the parties' delegations in Congress--but also seeks to explain the realignment. The author considers the politically charged developments that have contributed to a redefinition and expansion of the women's rights agenda since the 1960s--including legal changes, the emergence of the modern women's movement, and changes in patterns of employment, fertility, and marriage. Wolbrecht explores how party leaders reacted to these developments and adopted positions in ways that would help expand their party's coalition. Combined with changes in those coalitions--particularly the rise of social conservatism within the GOP and the affiliation of social movement groups with the Democratic party--the result was the polarization characterizing the parties' stances on women's rights today.

A history of the early twentieth-century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. In the United Kingdom, the question of women's suffrage represented the most substantial challenge to the constitution since 1832, seeking not only to expand but to redefine definitions of citizenship and power. At the same time, it was inseparable from other urgent contemporary political debates--the Irish question, the decline of the British Empire, the Great War, and the increasing demand for workers' rights. This collection positions women's suffrage as central to, rather than separate from, these broader political discussions, demonstrating how they intersected and were mutually constitutive. In particular, this collection pays close attention to the issues of class and Empire which shaped this era. It demonstrates how campaigns for women's rights were consciously and unconsciously played out, impacting attitudes to motherhood, spurring the radical "birth-strike" movement, and burgeoning communist sympathies in working-class communities around Britain and beyond.

While the Arab Uprisings presented new opportunities for the empowerment of women, the sidelining of women remains a constant risk in the post-revolutionist MENA countries. Changes in the position of women are crucial to the reconfiguration of state-society relations and to the discussions between Islamist and secular trends. Theoretically framed and based on new empirical data, this edited volume explores women’s activism and political representation as well as discursive changes, with a particular focus on secular and Islamic feminism, and changes in popular opinions on women’s position in society. While the contributors express optimistic as well as more pessimistic views for the future, they agree that this is a period of uncertainty for women in the region, and that support by ruling elites towards women’s rights remains ambiguous and double-edged.

In The Politics of Women's Rights in Iran, Arzoo Osanloo explores how Iranian women understand their rights. After the 1979 revolution, Iranian leaders transformed the state into an Islamic republic. At that time, the country's leaders used a renewed discourse of women's rights to symbolize a shift away from the excesses of Western liberalism. Osanloo reveals that the postrevolutionary republic blended practices of a liberal republic with Islamic principles of equality. Her ethnographic study illustrates how women's claims of rights emerge from a hybrid discourse that draws on both liberal individualism and Islamic ideals. Osanloo takes the reader on a journey through numerous sites where rights are being produced--including Qur'anic reading groups, Tehran's family court, and law offices--as she sheds light on the fluid and constructed nature of women's perceptions of rights. In doing so, Osanloo unravels simplistic dichotomies between so-called liberal, universal rights and insular, local culture. The Politics of Women's Rights in Iran casts light on a contemporary non-Western understanding of the meaning behind liberal rights, and raises questions about the misunderstood relationship between modernity and Islam.

Collects 14 articles on women's suffrage. DuBois (history, U. of California in Los Angeles) traces the trajectory of the suffrage story against the backdrop of changing attitudes to politics, citizenship, and gender, and the resultant tensions over such issues as slavery and abolitionism, sexuality and religion, and class conflict. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The women most crucial to the feminist movement that emerged in the 1960's arrived at their commitment and consciousness in response to the unexpected and often shattering experience of having their work minimized, even disregarded, by the men they considered to be their colleagues and fellow crusaders in the civil rights and radical New Left movements. On the basis of years of research, interviews with dozens of the central figures, and her own personal experience, Evans explores how the political stance of these women was catalyzed and shaped by their sharp disillusionment at a time when their skills as political activists were newly and highly developed, enabling them to join forces to support their own cause.

This book addresses the relationships between fashion, women and power. One of the constants within the book is to question the enduring relationship between women and dress and how these inform and articulate the ways in which women remain represented as either suitable or not for public office and their behaviour is informed through dress when they are in power. The book critiques the interplays between politics, power, class, race and expectation in relation to the everyday practice of getting dress and the more performative and symbolic function of dress as embodiment. As never before, women are in positions of political power, and find themselves facing the maelstroms of mass media regarding their fashion, their deportment, and their right to govern. The contributors offer a wide set of perspectives on women and their roles, and their fashions when taking up powerful positions in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States. From the United Kingdom, the historical issues surrounding the movement towards ‘rational dress’ for women seeking their rights to vote and exercise are interrogated. The volume also explores viewpoints from East Asia, such as the constricting role for ‘common’ women upon entering the Imperial family in Japan. From the United States come the troublesome media stories engulfing two significant American Democratic First Ladies, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Michelle Obama. From New Zealand, the media reports on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern upon her motherhood while serving in the office and on her clothing during the 2019 Christchurch massacre comprise a much-needed contribution to the literature on women, politics and dress. Further, the role of dress in politics broadly as a form of resistance, will be examined in Australia from recent skirmishes over ‘appropriate dress’ with ex-prime minister Julia Gillard and other Australian female politicians. The role of women and what their fashion selections mean continues via considerable debate during worldwide events. Finally, the theme of resistance and social media continues with an examination of protest dressing in the recent street battles in Hong Kong to how young Asian women have been influenced by the social media campaigns to encourage wearing the veil in Indonesia, to Asian women negotiating femininity in political dress. Primary readership will be among researchers, scholars, educators and students in the fields of fashion, dress studies, women and gender studies and media and history. It will be of particular value as at graduate level and as a supplementary resource. There may be some general appeal to those with an interest in the women or cultures at the centre of the discussions.