Politics in the Philippines is not male-dominated, but gendered. This book examines how women hold power unofficially through their kinship ties with male politicians. Examining the perspectives of local concepts of power, the author explores gender and power in post-war Philippines and characterizes kinship politics embedded in the predominate political culture. Women's power is a site where the conflict between the two discourses of kinship politics and modern nationalist values is daily contested. Unofficial women's power is resourced through kinship politics, but because it is exercised behind the scenes it makes women vulnerable to criticisms that they are manipulative or scheming, wielding power that is illegal, undemocratic, anti-nationalist and unaccountable. But, at the other end of the equation, women's crusades against graft and corruption is doubly legitimized through both the modern discursive prioritizing of the nation-state and through women's traditional gendered roles as moral guardians. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in Philippine studies, Southeast Asian history, gender studies, women and power in Asia, and feminist studies.

Attempts to do justice to the complexity of contemporary families and to situate them in their economic, political, and cultural contexts. This book explores the ways in which family life is gendered and reflects on the work of maintaining family and kin relationships, especially as social and family power structures change over time.

This collection of essays examines women's involvement in politics in early modern England, as writers, as members of kinship and patronage networks, and as petitioners, intermediaries and patrons. It challenges conventional conceptualizations of female power and influence, defining 'politics' broadly in order to incorporate women excluded from formal, male-dominated state institutions. The chapters embrace a range of interdisciplinary approaches: historical, literary, palaeographic, linguistic and gender based. They deal with a variety of issues related to female intervention within political spheres, including women's rhetorical, persuasive and communicative skills; the production by women of a range of texts that can be termed 'political'; the politicization of marital, family and kinship networks; and female involvement in patronage and court politics. Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450-700 also looks at ways in which images of female power and authority were represented within canonical texts, such as Shakespeare's plays and Milton's epic poetry. The volume extends the range of areas and texts for the study of women, gender and politics, and locates women's political, social and cultural activities within the contexts of the family, locality and wider national stage. It argues for a blurring of the boundaries between the traditional categories of the 'public' and the 'private,' the 'domestic' and the 'political'; and enhances our understanding of the ways in which women exerted political force through informal, intimate and personal, as well as more official, and formal channels of power. As a whole the book makes an important contribution to the reassessment of early modern politics from the perspective of women.

Webs of Power offers a fresh perspective on women in Southeast Asia. Focusing on one rural Minangkabau village, the book provides vital insights into the gendered processes of post-coloniality. The Minangkabau living in West Sumatra are the largest matrilineal group in the world. They have intrigued generations of scholars because they are matrilineal and Islamic. By exploring the contestations and accommodations women and men make with state and Islamic ideologies, Webs of Power discloses the processes at the heart of globalization as well as the complexities of kinship and power in a rural agricultural community. The book challenges conventional thinking about matriliny, showing the prominence of senior women in all aspects of village life.

This book of womens organizations and activism in the Philippines highlights their significant impact on contemporary Philippine society. The author explores the ways in which womens activism has initiated change in cultural attitudes toward women by destroying stereotypes and offering alternatives models.

2018 Best Collaborative Project from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women In the last thirty years scholarship has increasingly engaged the topic of women’s alliances in early modern Europe. The Politics of Female Alliance in Early Modern England expands our knowledge of yet another facet of female alliance: the political. Archival discoveries as well as new work on politics and law help shape this work as a timely reevaluation of the nature and extent of women’s political alliances. Grouped into three sections—domestic, court, and kinship alliances—these essays investigate historical documents, drama, and poetry, insisting that female alliances, much like male friendship discourse, had political meaning in early modern England. Offering new perspectives on female authors such as the Cavendish sisters, Anne Clifford, Aemilia Lanyer, and Katherine Philips, as well as on male-authored texts such as Romeo and Juliet, The Winter’s Tale, Swetnam the Woman-Hater, and The Maid’s Tragedy, the essays bring both familiar and unfamiliar texts into conversation about the political potential of female alliances. Some contributors are skeptical about allied women’s political power, while others suggest that such female communities had considerable potential to contain, maintain, or subvert political hierarchies. A wide variety of approaches to the political are represented in the volume and the scope will make it appealing to a broad audience.

In Political Kinship in Pakistan, Stephen M. Lyon illustrates how contemporary politics in Pakistan are built on complex kinship networks created through marriage and descent relations. Lyon points to kinship as a critical mechanism for understanding both Pakistan’s continued inability to develop strong and stable governments, and its incredible durability in the face of pressures that have led to the collapse and failure of other states around the world.