Globalization and Feminist Activism

In this compelling and comprehensive overview, Mary E. Hawkesworth explores transnational feminist efforts to produce a more just global order. Arguing that globalization is a feminist issue, she considers how social, economic, and political inequalities between men and women of different races, classes, ethnicities, and nationalities have been produced and contested over the past two centuries of capitalist development. Through the use of both historical and contemporary examples, the author demonstrates how women have forged international networks and alliances to address specific gender issues beyond the borders of the nation-state, crafting policies to mitigate pressing abuses and devising alternatives to liberal and neoliberal agendas. Analyzing innovative feminist tactics to produce global change, the book carefully traces the structural forces that permeate and constrain transnational feminist activism. Hawkesworth illuminates the complexity of feminist strategies to influence international agencies and foundations, national governments, and transnational NGOs alike. By providing critical new insights into the gendered nature of the global system and the gendered dynamics of international institutions and nation states, this work will be invaluable for all those engaged in the interdisciplinary fields of globalization studies and feminist studies.