This book examines how feminist movements have contested the dominant discourses and state politics that have impeded women's autonomy over their bodies since the late 1960s. It deals with two important facets of this struggle, prostitution and the right to abortion, as they relate to the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.

The legal regulation of gender and sexuality has undergone dramatic changes throughout Europe in the last 40 years and this has shaped what it means to be a European citizen. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary research, this book uses the discourses around current European sexual politics as an entry point to interrogate how, and with what effect, the EU and its Member States harness issues of gender and sexuality to support issues of higher political importance. It takes recent and ongoing political debates and legislative changes around prostitution and sexual assault as a focus. Using four national case studies: Poland, Germany, Sweden and Italy it illuminates how the EU’s desire for increased harmonisation across the Union around gender and sexuality norms and values operates differently and with specific effects across Member States. The book’s structure provides a detailed map of how and why contemporary European sexual politics is changing, and how this contributes to establishing European norms and values in developments in law and policy around prostitution and sexual assault. By examining how and why the EU and its Member States implement their policies in these two policy areas we can begin to illuminate how contemporary European sexual politics serve some groups’ interests while marginalizing ‘Others’.

Providing a state of the art overview, this comprehensive Handbook is an essential introduction to the subject of Gender and Social Policy. Bringing together original contributions and research from leading researchers it covers the theoretical perspectives of the field, the central policy terrain of gender inequalities of income, employment and care, and family policy. Examining gender and social policy at both the regional and national level, the Handbook is an excellent resource for advanced students and scholars of sociology, political science, women’s studies, policy studies as well as practitioners seeking to understand how gender shapes the contours of social policy and politics.

The triangle of empowerment is how this volume's editors describe the three sets of actors involved in women's collective struggles in the political arena: the women's movement, feminist politicians, and feminist civil servants. Original case studies from Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean analyze the political struggles women are waging to make their voices heard and to place women's issues on the agenda in different societies.

Social movements have shaped and are shaping modern societies around the globe; this is evident when we look at examples such as the Arab Spring, Spain’s Indignados and the wider Occupy movement. In this volume, experts analyse the ‘classic’ and new social movements from a uniquely global perspective and offer insights in current theoretical discussions on social mobilisation. Chapters are devoted both to the study of continental developments of social movements going back to the nineteenth century and ranging to the present day, and to an emphasis on the transnational dimension of these movements. Interdisciplinary and truly international, this book is an essential text on social movements for historians, political scientists, sociologists, philosophers and social scientists.

This book provides a path-breaking study of the genesis, growth, gains, and dilemmas of women's movements in countries throughout the world. Its focus is on the global South, where women's movements have engaged in complex negotiations with national and international forces. It challenges widely held assumptions about the Western origins and character of local feminisms. The authors locate women's movements within the terrain from which they emerged by exploring their relationships with the state, civil society, and other social movements. This fully revised second edition contains six new chapters by leading scholars of women and gender studies, on both individual countries and on several major regions of the world? Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Maghreb. This balanced coverage enables readers to identify regional patterns and also learn from in-depth case studies. Women's Movements in the Global Era is essential reading for anyone interested in the global scope and implications of feminism.

How does feminism shake up political science, the study of politics and electoral politics? What difference do feminist political scientists and politicians make to political institutions, policy processes and outcomes? The scholarship and activism of pioneering feminist political scientist Professor Joni Lovenduski helped establish these questions on the political science agenda. This book addresses key themes in Lovenduski’s seminal work. State-of-the-art chapters by leading scholars cover gender and parties; elected institutions and the state; quotas and recruitment; public opinion and women’s interests. Vignettes by prominent politicians and practitioners, including Dame Anne Begg MP, Baroness Gould, Deborah Mattinson, and the Rt Hon Theresa May, bring the academic analysis to life. Deeds and Words reveals the impact of feminist interventions on politics in the round. Its groundbreaking assessment of feminist scholarship and politics offers an appraisal of, and fitting tribute to, Lovenduski’s own contribution to gender studies and feminist politics.

The chapter Experiencing Male Dominance in Swedish Film Production” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Once again, prostitution occupies a prominent position on public and political agendas, both nationally and internationally. A topic of concern and interest within social and academic realms, it is a highly moralised, contested issue that is at the centre of heated and drawn-out debates. With each chapter dedicated to a separate country and written by a national authority on the subject, Assessing European Prostitution Policies seeks to explore how prostitution is regulated in 21 European countries, thus drawing out important implications for an effective and humane prostitution policy. Indeed, this innovative volume brings together systematic accounts of how national and local forms of governance influence the commercial market for sex as well as the lives of sex workers and third parties. All chapters cover the history of prostitution policy, national laws regulating prostitution, policy formulation and implementation, the national discourse on prostitution, the gap between national and local regulation, the impact of policy on the lives and rights of sex workers, and sex worker advocacy organizations. In addition to this, the authors examine and highlight how immigration, labour, fiscal and welfare law have as much impact on the sex trade as designated prostitution law. A unique interdisciplinary title that is comprehensive in its coverage, Assessing European Prostitution Policies will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, sex worker advocacy organisations and policy makers interested in fields such as Sexuality and Prostitution, Public Policy, Criminology and Gender Studies.

This book aims to map the diversity of meanings of gender equality across Europe and reflects on the contested concept of gender equality. In its exploration of the diverse meanings of gender equality it not only takes into account the existence of different visions of gender equality, and the way in which different political and theoretical debates crosscut these visions, but also reflects upon the geographical contexts in which visions and debates over gender equality are located. The contextual locations where these visions and debates take place include the European Union and member states such as Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovenia, Greece, and Spain. In all of these settings, the different meanings of gender equality are explored comparatively in relation to the issues of family policies, domestic violence, and gender inequality in politics, while specific national contexts discuss the issues of prostitution (Austria, Slovenia), migration (the Netherlands), homosexual rights (Spain), and antidiscrimination (Hungary). The multiple meanings of gender equality are studied through Critical Frame Analysis, a methodology that builds on social movement theory and that was refined further with elements of gender and political theory within the context of the MAGEEQ research project