A pioneering attempt to place the role of women within history during the inter-war years when both women's and socialist movements became prominent, this comparative study includes 11 west European countries.

This fascinating new study examines the experiences of women involved in the socialist movement during its formative years in Britain and the active role they played in campaigning for the vote. By giving full attention to this much-neglected group of women, Socialist Women examines and challenges the orthodox views of labour and suffrage history. Torn between competing loyalties of gender, class and politics, socialist women did not have a fixed identity but a number of contested identities. June Hannam and Karen Hunt probe issues that created divisions between these women, as well as giving them the opportunity to act together. In three fascinating case studies they explore: * women's suffrage * women and internationalism * the politics of consumption. Believing above all that being a woman was vital to their politics, these individuals sought to develop a woman-focused theory of socialism and to put this new politics into practice.

Though there has been much research on the incomplete emancipation project of state socialism in East and Central Europe, very little has been published on how the state and its institutions conceived of gender as a concept. This book seeks to understand if and how this conceptualization developed in the second half of the twentieth century, and what impact it had on everyday life and on culture. This study moves beyond the dichotomous gender perspectives and towards a nuanced understanding of the diverse discursive negotiations, agendas, actors and agency involved in state-socialist gender practices. Including a detailed case study on Czechoslovakia, contributors explore these issues in a series of independent, but collaboratively developed studies, placing their research in the context of other East Central European countries. The studies collected in the volume bring to light fresh material and consider it from the combined perspective of current gender theory and internal ideological dynamics of state socialism, breaking new ground in gender theory, cultural theory and studies of state socialism. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of gender studies, socialism, Cold-War politics and Eastern European politics and culture.

This book explores the politics of gender and democracy in post-communist Europe. Utilising the concept of political representation, the book scrutinises women’s legislative presence and highlights the opportunities and obstacles to parity democracy in this region of Europe. The book examines the link between women’s membership of national parliaments and the substantive representation of gender interests. It investigates the role of civil society, the state and the European Union in representing women’s interests and in promoting gender politics. The book provides an important and timely contribution to the classical political questions of who represents, what is represented, and how representation takes place. In adopting an integrated approach to political representation, the book extends current understanding of this fundamental concept. Using new research, it provides the first comprehensive comparative analysis of the interplay between emerging democracies and gender politics in post-communist Europe.

Available in paperback for the first time, Gareth Griffith's book provides a comprehensive critical account of the political ideas of one of the most influential commentators of the twentieth century. With close reference to a range of Shaw's texts, from the Fabian tracts to the plays, Gareth Griffith draws out the central theoretical messages of Shaw's engagement with politics. The first part of the book provides an intellectual biography, while at the same time analysing Shaw's key concerns in relation to his Fabianism, arguments for equality of income and ideas on democracy and education. Part Two looks at those areas which Shaw approached as long-standing historical problems or dramas requiring immediate thought or action; sexual equality, the Irish question, war, fascism and sovietism. The book is directed to the general reader as well as to specialists. It will be central reading for anyone seeking to understand Shaw's life, and literary and political writings, or the development of political thinking in this century, or the problems and potential inherent in socialism.

Working out Gender brings together leading scholars and young researchers to examine the various ways in which gender is currently being used in labour history. Having been a dynamic and contentious category of historical analysis since the mid 1980s gender continues to incite much debate. This volume seeks a more informed view about labour history both by advancing the position of women and making their lives central to learning and by examining men as gendered persons and discussing the social construction of masculinity. A broad perspective of labour history is scrutinised on both sides of the Atlantic, though the emphasis is given to European experiences. Themes examined include work and workplace activities, the working classes, masculinity and politics, and the timespan ranges from the eighteenth century to recent times.

Comprised of 43 innovative contributions, this companion is both an overview of, and intervention into the field of cinema and gender. The essays included here address a variety of geographical contexts, from an analysis of cinema. Islam and women and television under Eastern European socialism, to female audience reception in Nigeria, to changing class and race norms in Bollywood dance sequences. A special focus is on women directors in a global context that includes films and filmmakers from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, North and South America. The collection also offers a solid overview of feminist contributions to thinking on genre from the "chick flick" to the action or Western film, to film noir and the slasher. Readers will find contributions on a variety of approaches to spectatorship, reception studies and fandom, as well as transnational approaches to star studies and essays addressing the relationship between feminist film theory and new media. Other topics include queer and trans* cinema, eco-cinema and the post-human. Finally, readers interested in the history of film will find essays addressing the methodological dimensions of feminist film history, essays on silent and studio era women in film, and histories of female filmmakers in a variety of non-Western contexts.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1978.