A survey of the documents and structures that exist within the United Nations concerning women in the development process. This edition has been updated to cover the post-Beijing period. It includes a new introduction and a commentary on the Fourth World Conference on Women and what it achieved.

Gloria Steinem, one of the most iconic feminist thinkers of the world, spent her early years in India. Her time in the country revealed to Gloria the Gandhian insight that change, like a tree, must grow from the bottom up. Subsequently, her decades of work with the feminist movement in the US and across the world taught her that violence and domination are normalized by the false division of human beings into subject and object, the dominator and the dominated, 'masculine' and 'feminine'. In As if Women Matter, Gloria Steinem and activist Ruchira Gupta bring together a selection of ground-breaking essays by Gloria which, since the time that they were first written, have transcended borders and have laid the groundwork for much of modern feminist thought. In these pages, Gloria demonstrates how racism and discrimination based on caste and class differences cannot survive without controlling women's bodies-she also describes the many ways in which women and men are fighting that control. She brilliantly analyzes Adolf Hitler's obsession with masculinity, and finds a gendered understanding of violence in the making. She distinguishes between erotica and pornography, locating the difference between the two in the inequality that governs relations between the sexes. And, in addition to a trenchant account of a few days she spent as a Playboy Bunny, this volume also carries a never-before-published essay on sex trafficking by Gloria, 'The Third Way'. As if Women Matter is scholarly, profound, and leavened by a lightness of touch which makes the most complex arguments accessible to all readers.

'A clear, concise, easy-to-read account of the issues between sex, gender and feminism . . . an important book' Evening Standard 'A call for cool heads at a time of great heat and a vital reminder that revolutions don't always end well' Sunday Times Material Girls is a timely and trenchant critique of the influential theory that we all have an inner feeling known as a gender identity, and that this feeling is more socially significant than our biological sex. Professor Kathleen Stock surveys the philosophical ideas that led to this point, and closely interrogates each one, from De Beauvoir's statement that, 'One is not born, but rather becomes a woman' (an assertion she contends has been misinterpreted and repurposed), to Judith Butler's claim that language creates biological reality, rather than describing it. She looks at biological sex in a range of important contexts, including women-only spaces and resources, healthcare, epidemiology, political organization and data collection. Material Girls makes a clear, humane and feminist case for our retaining the ability to discuss reality, and concludes with a positive vision for the future, in which trans rights activists and feminists can collaborate to achieve some of their political aims.

American culture is more sexually liberal than ever. But compared to men, women's sexual pleasure has not grown: Up to 40 percent of American women experience the sexual malaise clinically known as low sexual desire. Between this low desire, muted pleasure, and experiencing sex in terms of labor rather than of lust, women by the millions are dissatisfied with their erotic lives. For too long, this deficit has been explained in terms of women's biology, stress, and age. In The Pleasure Gap, Katherine Rowland rejects the idea that women should settle for diminished pleasure; instead, she argues women should take inequality in the bedroom as seriously as we take it in the workplace and understand its causes and effects. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with more than one hundred women and dozens of sexual health professionals, Rowland shows that the pleasure gap is neither medical malady nor psychological condition but rather a result of our culture's troubled relationship with women's sexual expression. This provocative exploration of modern sexuality makes a case for closing the gap for good.

Leading scholars in the field examine the highly topical issue of the future of the welfare state in Europe. They argue that welfare states need to adjust, and examine which kind of welfare architecture will further Europe's stated goal of maximum social inclusion and justice. The volume concentrates on four principal social policy domains; the aged and transition to retirement; the welfare issues related to profound changes in working life; the new risks and needs that arise in households and, especially, in child families; and the challenges of creating gender equality. The volume aims to promote a better understanding of the key welfare issues that will have to be faced in the coming decades. It also warns against the all-too-frequent recourse to patent policy solutions that have all to often characterized contemporary debate. It intends to move the policy debate from it often frustrating vague and generic level towards greater specificity and nuance.

Intended for use in courses on law and society, as well as courses in women's and gender studies, women and politics, and women and the law - this book that takes up the question of what women judges signify in several different jurisdictions in the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union. In so doing, its empirical case studies uniquely offer a model of how to study gender as a social process rather than merely studying women and treating sex as a variable. A gender analysis yields a fuller understanding of emotions and social movement mobilization, backlash, policy implementation, agenda setting, and representation. Lastly, the book makes a non-essentialist case for more women judges, that is, one that does not rest on women's difference.

Explores the burgeoning menstrual advocacy movement and analyzes how law should evolve to take menstruation into account. Approximately half the population menstruates for a large portion of their lives, but the law is mostly silent about the topic. Until recently, most people would have said that periods are private matters not to be discussed in public. But the last few years have seen a new willingness among advocates and allies of all ages to speak openly about periods. Slowly around the globe, people are recognizing the basic fundamental human right to address menstruation in a safe and affordable way, free of stigma, shame, or barriers to access. Menstruation Matters explores the role of law in this movement. It asks what the law currently says about menstruation (spoiler alert: not much) and provides a roadmap for legal reform that can move society closer to a world where no one is held back or disadvantaged by menstruation. Bridget J. Crawford and Emily Gold Waldman examine these issues in a wide range of contexts, from schools to workplaces to prisons to tax policies and more. Ultimately, they seek to transform both law and society so that menstruation is no longer an obstacle to full participation in all aspects of public and private life.