Women on the Defensive: Living through Conservative Times / Edition 2

by Sylvia Bashevkin

Overview

Feminism underwent perhaps its most difficult challenges in the 1980s, when conservatism reached the height of its influence in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Women on the Defensive: Living through Conservative Times explodes some widely-held beliefs about women and women's movements under Conservative and Republican leaders.

Prevailing accounts of the fate of women's movements in that decade ascribe their hardships to a postfeminist ideology or the result of a "backlash" against women, particularly in America. Sylvia Bashevkin's study excavates, however, a much more complex situation. By identifying the policies and goals held in common by feminists in all three countries and tracing their collision course with the conservative policies of the three administrations, she is able to document setbacks but also some progress, despite the right-of-center leaders. She also challenges the assumption that organized interests in the United States are less vulnerable in hard times than those in parliamentary systems, finding that the elections of Ronald Reagan, Brian Mulroney, and Margaret Thatcher had similar effects on both sides of the Atlantic. Her comparative analysis reveals that the policies of current leaders, while marginally better than their predecessors, will not allow women and women's movements to regain lost ground.

Organized thematically, rather than by country, Women on the Defensive describes the difficult relationship between feminists and conservatives during a time of bitter ideological and policy battles when the vibrant social movements of the 1960s and 1970s were seriously threatened.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226038858
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	06/08/1998
Edition description:	1
Pages:	326
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Sylvia Bashevkin is a professor in the Department of Political Science and director of the Canadian Studies Programme at the University of Toronto. She specializes in the areas of women and politics, public policy, and comparative politics.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgment
Introduction
Ch. 1: Ideas Collide
Ch. 2: Policy Battles
Ch. 3: The Money Crunch
Ch. 4: Tough Times in Review
Ch. 5: Driving a Wedge
Ch. 6: Changing Gears
Ch. 7: So What?
App. A: Legislative and Judicial Action in Three Countries
App. B: Interview Schedules
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

Bashevkin (political science, U. of Toronto) studies the intersection of conservative governments and the women's movements in three countries (the US, England, and Canada), presenting analyses of governmental and legal practices as well as the words of women activists who talk about feminism in the 1980s and beyond. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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