In a revealing examination of the complex interrelationship of religion, social forces, and organizational structure, Ordaining Women draws examples and data from over 100 Christian denominations to explore the meaning of institutional rules about women's ordination.

Using 150 years of women's history, this book details how women have organized into global movements which have shaped and challenged how international organizations consider gender. It argues that traditional ways of analysing international relations have ignored women's contributions because their tools are gender-exclusive. After developing a gender analysis, this book brings to light many contributions from women's movements especially related to the League of Nations and United Nations, and puts these in the context of changes in the global political economy.

The transition to democracy in South Africa was one of the defining events in twentieth-century political history. The South African women’s movement is one of the most celebrated on the African continent. Shireen Hassim examines interactions between the two as she explores the gendered nature of liberation and regime change. Her work reveals how women’s political organizations both shaped and were shaped by the broader democratic movement. Alternately asserting their political independence and giving precedence to the democratic movement as a whole, women activists proved flexible and remarkably successful in influencing policy. At the same time, their feminism was profoundly shaped by the context of democratic and nationalist ideologies. In reading the last twenty-five years of South African history through a feminist framework, Hassim offers fresh insights into the interactions between civil society, political parties, and the state. Hassim boldly confronts sensitive issues such as the tensions between autonomy and political dependency in feminists’ engagement with the African National Congress (ANC) and other democratic movements, and black-white relations within women’s organizations. She offers a historically informed discussion of the challenges facing feminist activists during a time of nationalist struggle and democratization. Winner, Victoria Schuck Award for best book on women and politics, American Political Science Association “An exceptional study, based on extensive research. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice “A rich history of women’s organizations in South African . . . . [Hassim] had observed at first hand, and often participated in, much of what she described. She had access to the informants and private archives that so enliven the narrative and enrich the analysis. She provides a finely balanced assessment.”—Gretchen Bauer, African Studies Review

Twenty-six original essays look at contemporary feminist organizations.

In the decades since the women's movement first called for new collective, nonhierarchical modes of organization, have distinctly "feminist" organizational structures evolved? Focusing on women's nonprofit organizations founded in New York City between 1967 and 1988, Rebecca Bordt describes what these organizations look like structurally and explains why they have adopted a particular form.

In the 1970s the women's movement created tremendous changes in the lives of women throughout the United States. Millions of women participated in a movement that fundamentally altered the country's ideas about how women could and should contribute to American society. Revolutionizing Expectations tells the story of some of those women, many of whom took part in the movement in unexpected ways. By looking at feminist activism in Durham, Denver, and Indianapolis, Melissa Estes Blair uncovers not only the work of local NOW chapters but also the feminist activism of Leagues of Women Voters and of women's religious groups in those pivotal cities. Through her exploration of how women's organizations that were not explicitly feminist became channels for feminism, Blair expands our understanding of who feminists were and what feminist action looked like during the high tide of the women's movement. Revolutionizing Expectations looks beyond feminism's intellectual leaders and uncovers a multifaceted women's movement of white, African American, and Hispanic women from a range of political backgrounds and ages who worked together to bring about tremendous changes in their own lives and the lives of generations of women who followed them.

When Betty Friedan produced The Feminine Mystique in 1963, she could not have realized how the discovery and debate of her contemporaries' general malaise would shake up society. Victims of a false belief system, these women were following strict social convention by loyally conforming to the pretty image of the magazines, and found themselves forced to seek meaning in their lives only through a family and a home. Friedan's controversial book about these women - and every woman - would ultimately set Second Wave feminism in motion and begin the battle for equality. This groundbreaking and life-changing work remains just as powerful, important and true as it was forty-five years ago, and is essential reading both as a historical document and as a study of women living in a man's world. 'One of the most influential nonfiction books of the twentieth century.' New York Times 'Feminism ...... began with the work of a single person: Friedan.' Nicholas Lemann With a new Introduction by Lionel Shriver