Global struggles over women’s roles, rights, and dress have taken center stage in a drama that casts the secular and the religious in tense if not violent opposition. Advocates for equality speak of the issue in terms of rights and modern progress while reactionaries ground their authority in religious and scriptural appeals. Both sides presume women’s emancipation is tied to secularization. This volume upsets these certainties by blending diverse voices and traditions, both secular and religious, in studies historicizing, questioning, and testing the implicit links between secularism and expanded freedoms for women. Rather than treat secularism as the answer to conflicts over gender and sexuality, these essays show how it structures the conditions generating them.

This book defends progressive political interventions to erode the gendered division of labor as legitimate exercises of coercive political power. The gendered division of labor is widely regarded as the linchpin of gender injustice. The process of gender equalization in domestic and paid labor allocations has stalled, and a growing number of scholars argue that, absent political intervention, further eroding of the gendered division of labor will not be forthcoming anytime soon. Certain political interventions could jumpstart the stalled gender revolution, but beyond their prospects for effectiveness, such interventions stand in need of another kind of justification. In a diverse, liberal state, reasonable citizens will disagree about what makes for a good life and a good society. Because a fundamental commitment of liberalism is to limit political intrusion into the lives of citizens and allow considerable space for those citizens to act on their own conceptions of the good, questions of legitimacy arise. Legitimacy concerns the constraints we must abide by as we seek collective political solutions to our shared social problems, given that we will disagree, reasonably, both about what constitutes a problem and about what costs we should be willing to incur to fix it. The interventions in question would effectively subsidize gender egalitarian lifestyles at a cost to those who prefer to maintain a traditional gendered division of labor. In a pluralistic, liberal society where many citizens reasonably resist the feminist agenda, can we legitimately use scarce public resources to finance coercive interventions to subsidize gender egalitarianism? This book argues that they can, and moreover, that they can even by the lights of political liberalism, a particularly demanding theory of liberal legitimacy.

The groundbreaking classic that explores how women can and should negotiate for parity in their workplaces, homes, and beyond When Linda Babcock wanted to know why male graduate students were teaching their own courses while female students were always assigned as assistants, her dean said: "More men ask. The women just don't ask." Drawing on psychology, sociology, economics, and organizational behavior as well as dozens of interviews with men and women in different fields and at all stages in their careers, Women Don't Ask explores how our institutions, child-rearing practices, and implicit assumptions discourage women from asking for the opportunities and resources that they have earned and deserve—perpetuating inequalities that are fundamentally unfair and economically unsound. Women Don't Ask tells women how to ask, and why they should.

This book examines water security as a prime example of how the economic, socio-cultural and political-normative systems that regulate access to water reflect the evolving and gendered power relations between different societal groups. Access to water is characterized by inequalities: it depends not only on natural water availability, but also on the respective socio-political context. It is regulated by gender-differentiated roles and responsibilities towards the resource, which are strongly influenced by, among others, tradition, religion, customary law, geographical availability, as well as the historical and socio-political context. While gender has been recognized as a key intervening variable in achieving equitable water access, most studies fail to acknowledge the deep interrelations between social structures and patterns of water use. Proof of these shortcomings is the enduring lack of data on water accessibility, availability and utilization that sufficiently acknowledges the relational nature of gender and other categories of power and difference, like class and socioeconomic status, as well as their comprehensive analysis. This book addresses this major research gap.

This groundbreaking book provides an accessible, empowering exploration of the evolution of gender identity issues and the ongoing fight for equality and inclusion in society. Spanning topics from workplace discrimination to transgender rights, author Leslie Green leverages decades of scholarship and activism to illuminate the complex forces shaping gender opportunity worldwide. Each chapter examines lingering cultural and structural barriers that continue to limit freedom and justice based on identity. The book explores restrictive gender stereotypes and roles, the persistence of the workplace gender pay gap, lack of women in leadership, imbalanced family caregiving burdens, disproportionate gender-based violence, and the marginalization experienced by transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. Green provides policy and societal context around key identity terms like cisgender, transgender, non-binary, gender fluid and gender affirming. The book chronicles the history of gender justice movements and progress made to date. However, true inclusion remains unfinished. Collapsing the Divide underscores that gender inequality intersects with other systems of bias and oppression related to race, class, sexual orientation, disability status, age and other attributes. Lived experiences differ based on social positioning. Holistic solutions must address needs across diverse demographic groups-not just dominant majorities. Insightful storytelling lifts up courageous voices and perspectives from the front lines of gender justice work. The book combines intellectual rigor with emotional resonance to foster compassion and pragmatic solutions. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of both persisting pain points and promising paths ahead to transform institutions, dismantle entrenched privileges, and embrace gender diversity with humanity. Perfect for college students, educators, workplace diversity trainers, policy makers, activists and conscientious citizens, Collapsing the Divide will open your eyes to the next chapter of gender liberation struggles. By collapsing past divisions, society can unlock the richness of our shared human potential.