This definitive Reader presents a coherent, comprehensive, comparative, and much-needed collective history of women’s activism throughout the world.
Including key pieces on the history of feminism from an international group of scholars, the book charts feminists’ attempts to restore a balance of power between the sexes against a backdrop of huge cultural, social and political transitions across the world. The collection covers the period from the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 – a turning point that gave rise to practical efforts to embody principles of rights, liberty, and equality on behalf of women as well as men – up until the end of World War II. The chapters reach out well beyond Europe and the Americas to examine the history of feminisms in Japan, India, China, the Middle East and Australasia.
This diverse body of material is drawn together through a comprehensive general introduction, and individual section introductions. The chapters are also supported by a global timeline of events, and there is a bibliography of further reading.
Contributors include Padma Anagol, Marilyn J. Boxer, Jacqueline R. DeVries, Ellen Carol DuBois, Louise Edwards, Ellen L. Fleischmann, Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild, Patricia Grimshaw, Inger Hammar, Nancy Hewitt, Francesca Miller, Barbara Molony, Karen Offen, Florence Rochefort, Leila J. Rupp, Sandra Stanley Holton, Anne Summers, Ann Taylor Allen, Angela Woollacott and Susan Zimmermann.
Series editor’s preface Acknowledgements Signposts - Chronology Introduction Karen Offen Part I: Opening Out National Histories of Feminisms 1 Was Mary Wollstonecraft a Feminist? Karen Offen 2 Re-Rooting American Women’s Activism: Global Perspectives on 1848 Nancy Hewitt 3 Liberty, Equality, Morality: The Attempt to Sustain an International Campaign against the Double Sexual Standard Anne Summers 4 "To Educate Women into Rebellion": Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Creation of a Transatlantic Network of Radical Suffragists Sandra Stanley Holton 5 Women’s Rights, Feminism, and Suffragism in Japan, 1870-1925 Barbara Molony Part II: Rethinking Feminist Action in Religious and Denominational Contexts 6 Feminism and Protestantism in the 19th Century: First Encounters 1830-1900 Florence Rochefort 7 From Fredrika Bremer to Ellen Key: Calling, Gender and the Emancipation Debate in Sweden, c. 1830-1900 Inger Hammar 8 Indian Christian Women and Indigenous Feminism, c. 1850-1920 Padma Anagol 9 Settler Anxieties, Indigenous Peoples, and Women’s Suffrage in the Colonies of Australia, New Zealand, and Hawai’i, 1888 to 1902 Patricia Grimshaw 10 Challenging Traditions: Denominational Feminisms in Britain, 1910-1920 Jacqueline R. DeVries Part III: Birthing International Feminist Initiatives in an Age of Nationalisms and Imperialisms 11 Constructing Internationalism: The Case of Transnational Women’s Organizations, 1888-1945 Leila J. Rupp 12 The Challenge of Multinational Empire for the International Women’s Movement: The Habsburg Monarchy and the Development of Feminist Inter/National Politics Susan Zimmerman 13 The Other ‘Awakening’: The Emergence of Women’s Movements in the Modern Middle East, 1900-1940 Ellen L. Fleischmann 14 Latin American Feminism and the Transnational Arena Francesca Miller 15 Internationalizing Married Women’s Nationality: The Hague Campaign of 1930 Ellen Carol DuBois 16 Inventing Commonwealth and Pan-Pacific Feminisms: Australian Women’s Internationalist Activism in the 1920s-30s Angela Woollacott Part IV: Reconceptualizing Historical Knowledge through Feminist Historical Perspectives 17 Feminism, Social Science, and the Meanings of Modernity: The Debate on the Origin of the Family in Europe and the United States, 1860-1914 Ann Taylor Allen 18 Women’s Suffrage and Revolution in the Russian Empire, 1905-1917 Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild 19 Women’s Suffrage in China: Challenging Scholarly Conventions Louise Edwards 20 Rethinking the Socialist Construction and International Career of the Concept "Bourgeois Feminism" Marilyn J. Boxer Suggested Further Reading
Biography
Karen Offen is a historian and independent scholar, affiliated as a Senior Scholar with the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University. Her previous publications include European Feminisms, 1700-1950: A Political History (2000).
Globalizing Feminisms is a landmark book. Informative, stimulating and challenging, it reveals how the history of feminisms worldwide is integral to modernity. - June Purvis, Times Higher Education
"Globalizing Feminisms remains a useful primer on the intellectual and political history of feminism. It not only offers provocative, well-researched case studies but also the all-important exhortation to remain critical of dominant epistemologies and the historical narratives they engender." - Seneca Joyner, Northeastern University, USA
