The Logics of Gender Justice
State Action on Women's Rights Around the World

This book explains when and why governments around the world take action to advance - or undermine - women's rights.

Mala Htun (Author), S. Laurel Weldon (Author)

9781108405461, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 March 2018

366 pages, 25 b/w illus. 39 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.53 kg

'I found the book's exposition consistently accessible, aided by the authors' lucid delivery. They describe their methodologies, rationales for choosing them, and limitations thereof in great detail, and in a manner I found comprehensible. Aside from the great value of its content, the volume would be an immensely useful tool for teaching research methods to advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Overall, The Logics of Gender Justice is a masterful achievement.' Carole H. Browner, Politics & Gender

When and why do governments promote women's rights? Through comparative analysis of state action in seventy countries from 1975 to 2005, this book shows how different women's rights issues involve different histories, trigger different conflicts, and activate different sets of protagonists. Change on violence against women and workplace equality involves a logic of status politics: feminist movements leverage international norms to contest women's subordination. Family law, abortion, and contraception, which challenge the historical claim of religious groups to regulate kinship and reproduction, conform to a logic of doctrinal politics, which turns on relations between religious groups and the state. Publicly-paid parental leave and child care follow a logic of class politics, in which the strength of Left parties and overall economic conditions are more salient. The book reveals the multiple and complex pathways to gender justice, illuminating the opportunities and obstacles to social change for policymakers, advocates, and others seeking to advance women's rights.

1. Introduction: states and gender justice
2. Feminist mobilization and status politics: combatting violence against women
3. Governing women's legal status at work
4. Doctrinal politics: religious power, the state, and family law
5. Class politics: family leave and child care policy
6. Reproductive rights: class, status, and doctrinal politics
7. The multiple logics of gender justice
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: International human rights law [LBBR], International law [LB], Gender & the law [LAQG], Human rights [JPVH], International relations [JPS], Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP], Sociology [JHB], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Society & social sciences [J]