Women and the Ideology of Political Exclusion explores the origin and evolution of the political ideology that has kept women away from centers of political power – from the birth of democracy in ancient Athens to the modern era. In this period of 2500 years, two parallel tracks advanced: while male authority tried to construct an ideology that justified women’s incompatibility with the political organization of the state, women attempted to resist their exclusion and thwart arguments about their inferiority. Although the issue of women’s status has been studied in detail in specific eras, this interdisciplinary collection extends the boundaries of the discussion. Drawing on a wide range of literary and historical sources, including Herodotus’ Histories, Plato’s Laws, María de San José’s Oaxaca Manuscript, and the work of Émilie Du Châtelet, Mary Boykin Chesnut, and Virginia Woolf, the chapters here reveal the various manifestations of the female-inferiority construct. Such an extensive overview of this historical trajectory promotes a deeper understanding of its causes, permutations, and persistence. Women may have made great gains toward political power, but they continue to encounter invisible barriers, raised by traditional stereotypes, that block their path to success. Women and the Ideology of Political Exclusion aims to make these barriers visible, raising awareness about the longevity and tenacity of arguments, the roots of which reach classical antiquity.

Women, State, and Ideology examines the underlying ideologies that make female subordination a universal experience. It analyzes government policies directed at women in African and Asian countries. It argues, too, that ideologies which oppress women are removed only by prolonged struggle—and then only after fundamental political and social changes have been made. The authors evaluate different policies aimed at women in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Iran, Malaysia, China, India, Israel, and Vietnam. Despite different political, social, and economic conditions, there exists a general assumption that women should be responsible for domestic duties. Drawing on new research, the authors indicate that these different national contexts require separate emphases and tactics. One common factor is clear, however—that despite many setbacks, a growing consciousness exists among women, as well as increased opposition to oppressive measures.

Based on original research into women's participation in the workforce, this book is the most up-to-date study of women in Iran available. The Islamisation of state and society which followed the 1979 revolution involved an attempt by the Islamic state to seclude women within the home. However, the power of the state was constrained by many factors - the Iran-Iraq war, economic restructuring - and women's own responses to oppression. In spite of continual attempts by the state to strengthen patriarchal relationships, women's participation in the labour force in 1999 is greater than it was before the revolution. Women's participation in both the economy and in political movements has led to a much greater level of gender consciousness in the 1990s than at the height of westernisation in the 1960s and 70s. Religious and secular women in urban areas have demanded reforms and forced the Islamic state to return to the position of the pre 1979 reforms. Providing a history of Iran, an introduction to Islamism and an analysis of the women and Islam debate, this book will be necessary reading for students and academics of Middle East studies, women's studies and labour studies.

Women, State, and Ideology examines the underlying ideologies that make female subordination a universal experience. It analyzes government policies directed at women in African and Asian countries. It argues, too, that ideologies which oppress women are removed only by prolonged struggle--and then only after fundamental political and social changes have been made. The authors evaluate different policies aimed at women in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Iran, Malaysia, China, India, Israel, and Vietnam. Despite different political, social, and economic conditions, there exists a general assumption that women should be responsible for domestic duties. Drawing on new research, the authors indicate that these different national contexts require separate emphases and tactics. One common factor is clear, however--that despite many setbacks, a growing consciousness exists among women, as well as increased opposition to oppressive measures.

Women of the Republic views the American Revolution through women's eyes. Previous histories have rarely recognized that the battle for independence was also a woman's war. The "women of the army" toiled in army hospitals, kitchens, and laundries. Civilian women were spies, fund raisers, innkeepers, suppliers of food and clothing. Recruiters, whether patriot or tory, found men more willing to join the army when their wives and daughters could be counted on to keep the farms in operation and to resist enchroachment from squatters. "I have Don as much to Carrey on the warr as maney that Sett Now at the healm of government," wrote one impoverished woman, and she was right. Women of the Republic is the result of a seven-year search for women's diaries, letters, and legal records. Achieving a remarkable comprehensiveness, it describes women's participation in the war, evaluates changes in their education in the late eighteenth century, describes the novels and histories women read and wrote, and analyzes their status in law and society. The rhetoric of the Revolution, full of insistence on rights and freedom in opposition to dictatorial masters, posed questions about the position of women in marriage as well as in the polity, but few of the implications of this rhetoric were recognized. How much liberty and equality for women? How much pursuit of happiness? How much justice? When American political theory failed to define a program for the participation of women in the public arena, women themselves had to develop an ideology of female patriotism. They promoted the notion that women could guarantee the continuing health of the republic by nurturing public-spirited sons and husbands. This limited ideology of "Republican Motherhood" is a measure of the political and social conservatism of the Revolution. The subsequent history of women in America is the story of women's efforts to accomplish for themselves what the Revolution did not.

Cheryl Anderson examines the laws relating to women that are found in the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic law. She argues that the laws can be divided into those that treat women similarly to men (defined as 'inclusive' laws) and those that treat women differently ('exclusive' laws). She then suggests that the exclusive laws, which construct gender as male dominance/female subordination, do not just describe violence against women but are inherently violent toward women. As a non-historical critique of ideology, critical theory is used to offer analytical insights that have significant implications for understanding gender constructions in both ancient and contemporary settings.

This book integrates new material, using sources from the eighteenth and nineteenth century periodical press, research with contemporary readers, the authors' critical reading of past and present magazines, and a clear discussion of theoretical approaches from literary criticism. The development of the genre, and its part in the historical process of forging modern definitions of gender, class and race are analysed through critical readings and a discussion of readers' negotiations with the contradictory pleasures of the magazine, and its constricting ideal of femininity.