Social Justice Feminists In The United States And Germany

Women reformers in the United States and Germany maintained a brisk dialogue between 1885 and 1933. Drawing on one another's expertise, they sought to alleviate a wide array of social injustices generated by industrial capitalism, such as child labor and the exploitation of women in the workplace. This book presents and interprets documents from that exchange, most previously unknown to historians, which show how these interactions reflected the political cultures of the two nations. On both sides of the Atlantic, women reformers pursued social justice strategies. The documents discussed here reveal the influence of German factory legislation on debates in the United States, point out the differing contexts of the suffrage movement, compare pacifist and antipacifist reactions of women to World War I, and trace shifts in the feminist movements of both countries after the war. Social Justice Feminists in the United States and Germany provides insight into the efforts of American and German women over half a century of profound social change. Through their dialogue, these women explicate their larger political cultures and the place they occupied in them.

Varieties of Feminism investigates the development of German feminism by contrasting it with women's movements that arise in countries, like the United States, committed to liberalism. With both conservative Christian and social democratic principles framing the feminist discourses and movement goals, which in turn shape public policy gains, Germany provides a tantalizing case study of gender politics done differently. The German feminist trajectory reflects new political opportunities created first by national reunification and later, by European Union integration, as well as by historically established assumptions about social justice, family values, and state responsibility for the common good. Tracing the opportunities, constraints, and conflicts generated by using class struggle as the framework for gender mobilization—juxtaposing this with the liberal tradition where gender and race are more typically framed as similar—Ferree reveals how German feminists developed strategies and movement priorities quite different from those in the United States.

Profiles nineteenth-century women who overcame the disadvantage of being female in order to change the society in which they lived, by promoting temperance, child labor laws, health care, and other causes.

American feminism has always been about more than the struggle for individual rights and equal treatment with men. There's also a vital and continuing tradition of women's reform that sought social as well as individual rights and argued for the dismantling of the masculine standard. In this much anticipated book, Dorothy Sue Cobble retrieves the forgotten feminism of the previous generations of working women, illuminating the ideas that inspired them and the reforms they secured from employers and the state. This socially and ethnically diverse movement for change emerged first from union halls and factory floors and spread to the "pink collar" domain of telephone operators, secretaries, and airline hostesses. From the 1930s to the 1980s, these women pursued answers to problems that are increasingly pressing today: how to balance work and family and how to address the growing economic inequalities that confront us. The Other Women's Movement traces their impact from the 1940s into the feminist movement of the present. The labor reformers whose stories are told in The Other Women's Movement wanted equality and "special benefits," and they did not see the two as incompatible. They argued that gender differences must be accommodated and that "equality" could not always be achieved by applying an identical standard of treatment to men and women. The reform agenda they championed--an end to unfair sex discrimination, just compensation for their waged labor, and the right to care for their families and communities--launched a revolution in employment practices that carries on today. Unique in its range and perspective, this is the first book to link the continuous tradition of social feminism to the leadership of labor women within that movement.

A history of the twentieth-century feminists who fought for the rights of women, workers, and the poor, both in the United States and abroad For the Many presents an inspiring look at how US women and their global allies pushed the nation and the world toward justice and greater equality for all. Reclaiming social democracy as one of the central threads of American feminism, Dorothy Sue Cobble offers a bold rewriting of twentieth-century feminist history and documents how forces, peoples, and ideas worldwide shaped American politics. Cobble follows egalitarian women’s activism from the explosion of democracy movements before World War I to the establishment of the New Deal, through the upheavals in rights and social citizenship at midcentury, to the reassertion of conservatism and the revival of female-led movements today. Cobble brings to life the women who crossed borders of class, race, and nation to build grassroots campaigns, found international institutions, and enact policies dedicated to raising standards of life for everyone. Readers encounter famous figures, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Frances Perkins, and Mary McLeod Bethune, together with less well-known leaders, such as Rose Schneiderman, Maida Springer Kemp, and Esther Peterson. Multiple generations partnered to expand social and economic rights, and despite setbacks, the fight for the many persists, as twenty-first-century activists urgently demand a more caring, inclusive world. Putting women at the center of US political history, For the Many reveals the powerful currents of democratic equality that spurred American feminists to seek a better life for all.

Civil society and civic engagement have increasingly become topics of discussion at the national and international level. The editors of this volume ask, does the concept of “civil society” include gender equality and gender justice? Or, to frame the question differently, is civil society a feminist concept? Conversely, does feminism need the concept of civil society? This important volume offers both a revised gendered history of civil society and a program for making it more egalitarian in the future. An interdisciplinary group of internationally known authors investigates the relationship between public and private in the discourses and practices of civil societies; the significance of the family for the project of civil society; the relation between civil society, the state, and different forms of citizenship; and the complex connection between civil society, gendered forms of protest and nongovernmental movements. While often critical of historical instantiations of civil society, all the authors nonetheless take seriously the potential inherent in civil society, particularly as it comes to influence global politics. They demand, however, an expansion of both the concept and project of civil society in order to make its political opportunities available to all.

Feminism as the bulwark against fascism In this exciting, innovative work, Polish feminist philosopher Ewa Majewska proposes a specifically feminist politics of antifascism. Mixing theoretical discussion with engaging reflections on personal experiences, Majewska proposes what she calls “counterpublics of the common” and “weak resistance,” offering an alternative to heroic forms of subjectivity produced by neoliberal capitalism and contemporary fascism.

Notes on Contributors -- Foreword, Antonia Darder (Loyola Marymount University, USA) Acknowledgements -- Introduction, Sheila L. Macrine (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA) and Silvia Edling (University of Gṽle, Sweden) -- Part I: Overviews, Challenges and Possibilities -- 1. Borders and Bridges: Securitized Regimes, Racialized Citizenship, and Insurgent Feminist Praxis, Chandra Talpade Mohanty ( Syracuse University, USA) -- 2. The Refugee Crisis is a Feminist Issue, Sheila L. Macrine (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA) and Silvia Edling (University of Gṽle, Sweden) -- 3. How the Neoliberal Ultraconservative Alliance in Brazil Threatens Women's Lives: Learning to Fight and Survive , Inny Accioly (Fluminense Federal University, Brazil) -- 4. The Antidemocratic Fantasmatic Logic of Right-Wing Populism: Theoretical Reflections, Gundula Ludwig (Bremen University, Germany) -- 5. Technologies of Surveillance: A Transnational Black Feminist Analysis, K. Melchor Quick Hall ( Fielding Graduate University, USA ) -- 6. Hot Rockin' Vampires on Skateboards: Neoliberalism's Feminism, Robin Truth Goodman (( Florida State University, USA) -- Part II: Contextualizations, Education and the Teacher Profession -- 7. Feminism and Anti-feminism in Sweden, in the Wake of #MeToo, Sarah Ljungquist (University of Gṽle, Sweden) -- 8. Suppression of Teacher's Voices: Agency and Freedom within Neoliberal Masculinist Performativity, Geraldine Mooney Simmies (University of Limerick, Ireland) -- 9. Marias, Marielles, Mals̊: Southern Epistemologies, Resistance and Emancipation, Maria Luiza Süssekind (ANPEd, Brazil) and Ines Barbosa de Oliveira (State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) -- 10. The Greek Crisis and the Gender Gap: Reinforcing Connections between Education and Women's Empowerment, Maria Nikolakaki (University of Peloponnese, Greece) -- 11. The Emergence of the Anti-Gender Agenda in Swedish Higher Education, Guadalupe Francia (University of Gṽle, Sweden) -- Conclusion, Silvia Edling (University of Gṽle, Sweden) and Sheila L. Macrine (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA).

Examining the convergence of socialism and feminism in the German labor movement around the turn of the century, Jean Quataert probes the competing identities and loyalties of class and sex and the problems their adherents faced in reconciling the two. By focusing on the women's movement in particular, she expands our understanding of the German Social Democratic subculture and shows that socialist feminism was far more important than has been recognized heretofore. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.