Women, Activism and Social Change

Throughout history, women have participated in and sometimes initiated rebellions to defend the welfare of their family, community, class, race or ethnic group. This volume presents original research on women's activism in Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America. It explores how women have advanced social change and their influence on, and response to, existing transformations in society. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the authors examine women's activities and conditions in diverse social and political contexts, from revolutionary societies, to status quo societies, to societies in decline. With its primary focus on agency and social change, this book deconstructs patriarchal discourses and unearths aspects of female agency in an array of cultural, historical and geopolitical contexts. Chapters on movements in China, Japan, Australia, Croatia, Russia and a range of other countries both contribute to our understanding of change in those societies and seek to locate women at the center of politically aware movements. Although not exclusively a book about feminist activism, this essential collection is motivated by the feminist desire to restore to history a range of women's experiences. This book introduces new ways of thinking across boundaries, identities and complexities in a still essentially patriarchal world. It will be of great interest to students and researchers in the fields of gender studies, activism and comparative politics.

Maja Mikula is Senior Lecturer and coordinator of the Italy major and the Italian Language and Culture subjects in the International Studies program at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research interests are in the areas of gender, national identity, the new media and popular culture.

Introduction 1. Patriarchy and Resistance in Singapore 2. Bourgeois Women and Communist Revolutionaries? De-revoltionizing the Chinese Women's Suffrage Movement 3. Activities of the Japanese Patriotic Ladies Association (Aikoku Fujinkai) 4. 'I Spit on Your Stone': Women Against Rape and the Cult of Anzac in Australia 5. Embrace or Resist: Women and Collective Identification in Croatia and Former Yugoslavia Since World War II 6. Grassroots Women's Activism in Russia 1992-1996: Surviving Social Change Together? 7. 'To Struggle for Freedom is Our Responsibility': Tibetan Nuns in the Chinese State 8. The Militant Nun as Political Activist and Feminist in Martial Law Phillippines 9. 'Harem Women Do Seem The Happiest To Me': Novel Women, Fictions of Domesticity and National Development in India 10. 'Women, Don't Interfere With Us; We Are Fighting For Poland': Polish Mothers and Transgressive Others 11. Germany - Myth and Apologia in Christa Wolf's Novel 12. A Shadowy Sequence : Chicana Textual / Sexual Reinventions of Sor Juana.