From New Woman Writer to Socialist: The Life and Selected Writings of Tamura Toshiko From 1936 to 1938 by Anne Sokolsky offers a detailed biography of Tamura Toshiko’s life and translations of selected writings from the latter part of Tamura’s career. Considered one of Japan’s early modern feminists and hailed as a New Woman writer, Tamura is best known for her bold depictions of female sexuality and her condemnation of Japan’s patriarchal marriage system. Less well-known are the works Tamura produced when she returned to Japan in 1936 after spending two decades in North America. Through these selected translations, Sokolsky presents Tamura’s more politicized writing voice and shows how the objective of Tamura’s writing expanded beyond the sphere of women’s issues in Japan to more global concerns.

Socialist women faced the often thorny dilemma of fitting their concern with women's rights into their commitment to socialism. Mari Jo Buhle examines women's efforts to agitate for suffrage, sexual and economic emancipation, and other issues and the political and intellectual conflicts that arose in response. In particular, she analyzes the clash between a nativist socialism influence by ideas of individual rights and the class-based socialism championed by German American immigrants. As she shows, the two sides diverged, often greatly, in their approaches and their definitions of women's emancipation. Their differing tactics and goals undermined unity and in time cost women their independence within the larger movement.

A spirited, deeply researched exploration of why capitalism is bad for women and how, when done right, socialism leads to economic independence, better labor conditions, better work-life balance and, yes, even better sex. In a witty, irreverent op-ed piece that went viral, Kristen Ghodsee argued that women had better sex under socialism. The response was tremendous — clearly she articulated something many women had sensed for years: the problem is with capitalism, not with us. Ghodsee, an acclaimed ethnographer and professor of Russian and East European Studies, spent years researching what happened to women in countries that transitioned from state socialism to capitalism. She argues here that unregulated capitalism disproportionately harms women, and that we should learn from the past. By rejecting the bad and salvaging the good, we can adapt some socialist ideas to the 21st century and improve our lives. She tackles all aspects of a woman's life - work, parenting, sex and relationships, citizenship, and leadership. In a chapter called "Women: Like Men, But Cheaper," she talks about women in the workplace, discussing everything from the wage gap to harassment and discrimination. In "What To Expect When You're Expecting Exploitation," she addresses motherhood and how "having it all" is impossible under capitalism. Women are standing up for themselves like never before, from the increase in the number of women running for office to the women's march to the long-overdue public outcry against sexual harassment. Interest in socialism is also on the rise -- whether it's the popularity of Bernie Sanders or the skyrocketing membership numbers of the Democratic Socialists of America. It's become increasingly clear to women that capitalism isn't working for us, and Ghodsee is the informed, lively guide who can show us the way forward.

Focusing on youth, family, work, and consumption, Ambiguous Transitions analyzes the interplay between gender and citizenship postwar Romania. By juxtaposing official sources with oral histories and socialist policies with everyday practices, Jill Massino illuminates the gendered dimensions of socialist modernization and its complex effects on women’s roles, relationships, and identities. Analyzing women as subjects and agents, the book examines how they negotiated the challenges that arose as Romanian society modernized, even as it clung to traditional ideas about gender. Massino concludes by exploring the ambiguities of postsocialism, highlighting how the legacies of the past have shaped politics and women’s lived experiences since 1989.

By comparing fictional representations with "real" New Women in late-Victorian Britain, Sally Ledger makes a major contribution to an understanding of the "Woman Question" at the end of the century. Chapters on imperialism, socialism, sexual decadence, and metropolitan life situate the "revolting daughters" of the Victorian age in a broader cultural context than previous studies.

Records the forging of the first Marxist feminist party in history -- the Freedom Socialist Party. Set in the tumultuous upsurges of the 1960s and '70s, Gloria Martin vividly describes the eruption of the women's liberation movement amidst the antiwar and civil rights struggles. Martin documents early lesbian and gay coalitions, the fight to legalize abortion in Washington State, radical labor organizing, community mobilizations against police brutality and poverty, campus upsurges, and the growth of the FSP's sister organization, Radical Women. She scathingly critiques the role of the Socialist Workers Party and other Left groups typified by sexism and opportunism. To them, she contrasts the Freedom Socialist Party's multi-issue focus on reaching those most oppressed as workingclass people of color, women, and sexual minorities. From the on-the-ground perspective of a seasoned organizer, Martin probes with a sharp scalpel the internal conflicts in the movements for social change. This is a story of years of intense work by radical women and men. It is a chronicle, a reference, an analysis, a judgment, and a guidebook. Its central message is inescapable: socialist feminism as a theme and strategy has never been more urgently needed than it is today.

A personal and political manifesto vying for an antiracist socialist feminist movement of movements The world is burning, flooding, and politically exploding, to the point where it’s become clear that neoliberal feminism—the kind that aims to elect The First Woman President—will never be enough. In this book, Zillah Eisenstein asks us to consider what it would mean to thread “socialism” to feminism; then, what it would mean to thread “abolitionism” to socialist feminism. She asks all of us, especially white women, to consider what it would mean to risk everything to abolish white supremacy, to uproot the structural knot of sex, race, gender, and class growing from that imperial whiteness. If we are to create a revolution that is totally liberatory, we need to pool together in a new working class, building a radical movement made of movements. Eisenstein’s manifesto is built on almost half a century of her antiracist socialist feminist work. But now, she writes with a new urgency and imaginativeness. Eisenstein asks us not to be limited by reforms, but to radicalize each other on differing fronts. Our task is to build bridges, to connect disparate and passionate people across aisles, state lines, picket lines, and more. The genius force demanding that we abolish white supremacy can also create a new “we” for all of us—a humanity universally accepting of our complexities and differences. We are in uncharted waters, but that is exactly where we need to be.