Five books to read this Women's History Month
Five books to read this Women's History Month
6 March 2024
In celebration of Women's History Month this March, we share five Cambridge books that examine the recent history of women's rights and contributions to the world.
Each book recommendation connects to the UN's five key areas needing joint action for International Women's Day on 8 March:
- Investing in women, a human rights issue
- Ending poverty
- Implementing gender-responsive financing
- Shifting to a green economy and care society
- Supporting feminist change-makers
The Logics of Gender Justice: State Action on Women's Rights Around the World
by Mala Htun and S. Laurel Weldon
When and why do governments promote women's rights?
Through comparative analysis of state action in seventy countries from 1975 to 2005, The Logics of Gender Justice shows how different women's rights issues involve different histories, trigger different conflicts, and activate different sets of protagonists. This book reveals the multiple and complex pathways to gender justice, illuminating the opportunities and obstacles to social change for policymakers, advocates, and others seeking to advance women's rights.
'The Logics of Gender Justice is set to change the field of feminist public policy for years to come – a must read for scholars and students interested in gender equality policies.'
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Intersectional Advocacy: Redrawing Policy Boundaries Around Gender, Race, and Class
by Margaret Perez Brower
What happens to those living at the margins of US politics and policy – trapped between multiple struggles: gender-based violence, poverty, homelessness, unaffordable healthcare, mass incarceration and immigration?
Intersectional advocacy is a roadmap for rethinking public policy. Margaret Perez Brower offers the concept of 'intersectional advocacy' to reveal how select organisations addressing gender-based violence are closing policy gaps that perpetuate inequalities by gender, race, ethnicity, and class.
The book captures how advocacy groups strategically contest, reimagine, and reconfigure policy institutions using comprehensive new strategies that connect issues together. As these groups challenge traditional ways of addressing the most pressing social issues in the US, they uncover deep inequities that are housed within these institutions. Ultimately, organisations practising intersectional advocacy illuminate how to redraw the boundaries of policies in ways that transform US democracy to be more representative, equitable, and just.
'Engagingly written and passionate in its commitments, the book is must-read for all scholars of policymaking, especially those wishing to understand gender-based violence and/or the substantive representation of marginalized groups in the United States.'
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Making Gender Salient: From Gender Quota Laws to Policy
by Ana Catalano Weeks
Do gender quota laws – policies that mandate women's inclusion on parties' candidate slates – affect policy outcomes?
Making Gender Salient tackles this crucial question by offering a new theory to understand when and how gender quota laws impact policy. Focusing on work-family policies, Weeks finds that quotas shift work-family policies in the direction of gender equality and concludes that quotas are one important way of facilitating congruence between women's policy preferences and actual policy outcomes.
'We now know a good deal about the effectiveness of quota laws, but their impact on policy is less well understood. Making Gender Salient addresses this [...] using public opinion data to gauge women’s interests and explores the extent to which they are better represented when gender quotas for national legislatures are in place.'
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Lactation at Work: Expressed Milk, Expressing Beliefs, and the Expressive Value of Law
by Elizabeth A. Hoffmann
In recent decades, as women entered the US workforce in increasing numbers, they faced the conundrum of how to maintain breastfeeding and hold down full-time jobs. In 2010, the Lactation at Work Law mandated accommodations for lactating women.
Lactation at Work shows legal scholars how a successful civil rights law creates effective change; helps labor activists and management personnel understand how to approach new accommodations; and enables workers to understand the possibilities for the resolution of workplace problems through internal negotiations and legal reforms.
This book is a winner of the 2022 Choice Outstanding Academic Titles.
'This work finds its niche among others discussing employment law, human resources, and gender equity in the workplace. … Highly recommended.'
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Women’s International Thought: Towards a New Canon
edited by Patricia Owens, Katharina Rietzler, Kimberly Hutchings and Sarah C. Dunstan
Revealing a major distortion in current understandings of the history and theory of international relations, Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon offers an alternative 'archive' of international thought.
Encompassing 104 selections by 92 different thinkers, including Anna Julia Cooper, Margaret Sanger, Rosa Luxemburg, Judith Shklar, Hannah Arendt, Merze Tate, Susan Strange, Lucy P. Mair and Claudia Jones, it covers the widest possible range of subject matter, genres, ideological and political positions, and professional contexts.
Organised into thirteen thematic sections, each with a substantial introductory essay, the anthology provides intellectual, political and biographical context, and original arguments, showing women's significance in international thought.
'This majestic volume demands superlatives. It is not just the first anthology of women's international thought: it is by far the most critical and original such collection and the one most likely to explode and re-order its field. A milestone achievement.'
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In celebration of International Women's Day 2024 on 8 March we have made a collection of Cambridge journal articles and book chapters free to access throughout March.
Built with ShorthandFive books to read this Women's History Month
In celebration of Women's History Month, we share five Cambridge books that examine the recent history of women's rights and contributions to the world.
