Full Description
"On the whole, this much needed book offers both a necessary corrective to and further development of theoretical thinking about and empirical analysis of civil society. It should be required reading among historians, political scientists and sociologists alike." * Journal of Contemporary European Studies "Civil Society and Gender Justice does double intellectual duty: at the same time that it subjects the idea of civil society to scrupulous feminist critique, it demonstrates the theoretical utility and political necessity of that concept. Cogently argued and studded with illuminating transnational case studies, this single volume is priority reading for feminists, historians, and citizens." * Mary P. Ryan (University of California Berkeley) "Finally, in this rich collection of sparkling essays, the much ballyhooed concept of 'civil society' receives a searching critique and reconstruction from the standpoint of gender. Ranging well beyond the usual Western European and North American contexts, the contributors disclose both the exclusionary limitations and the transformative prospects of multiple incarnations and imaginings of civil society."
* Nancy Fraser (New School for Social Research) Civil society and civic engagement have increasingly become topics of discussion at the national and international level. The editors of this volume ask, does the concept of "civil society" include gender equality and gender justice? Or, to frame the question differently, is civil society a feminist concept? Conversely, does feminism need the concept of civil society? This important volume offers both a revised gendered history of civil society and a program for making it more egalitarian in the future. An interdisciplinary group of internationally known authors investigates the relationship between public and private in the discourses and practices of civil societies; the significance of the family for the project of civil society; the relation between civil society, the state, and different forms of citizenship; and the complex connection between civil society, gendered forms of protest and nongovernmental movements. While often critical of historical instantiations of civil society, all the authors nonetheless take seriously the potential inherent in civil society, particularly as it comes to influence global politics.
They demand, however, an expansion of both the concept and project of civil society in order to make its political opportunities available to all.
Contents
Acknowledgements Editors' Preface Introduction: Gendering Civil Society The editors PART I: RETHINKING CIVIL SOCIETY AND GENDER JUSTICE Chapter 1. Civil Society Gendered: Rethinking Theories and Practices Karen Hagemann Chapter 2. Dilemmas of Gender Justice: Gendering Equity, Justice and Recognition Regina Wecker PART II: EARLY CIVIL SOCIETIES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Chapter 3. The Progress of CivilizationA": Women, Gender, and Enlightened Perspectives on Civil Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain Jane Rendall Chapter 4. The City and the Citoyenne : Associational Culture and Female Civic Virtues in Nineteenth-Century Germany Gisela Mettele Chapter 5. Feminists Campaign in Public SpaceA": Civil Society, Gender Justice, and the History of European Feminisms Karen Offen PART III: CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE FAMILY Chapter 6. The Family - A Core Institution of Civil Society: A Perspective on the Middle Classes in Imperial Germany Gunilla Budde Chapter 7. Veiled Associations: The Muslim Middle Class, the Family and the Colonial State in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century India Margrit Pernau Chapter 8. Only ConnectA": Family, Gender and Civil Society in Twentieth-Century Europe and North America Paul Ginsborg PART IV: CIVIL SOCIETY, GENDERED PROTEST, AND NONGOVERNMENTAL MOVEMENTS Chapter 9. Necessary Confrontations: Gender, Civil Society, and the Politics of Food in Eighteenth- to Twentieth-Century Germany Manfred Gailus Chapter 10. GoodA" vs. MilitantA" Citizens: Masculinity, Class Protest, and the CivilA" Public in Britain between 1867 and 1939 Sonya O. Rose Chapter 11. Civil Society in a New Key? Feminist and Alternative Groups in 1970s West Germany Belinda Davis Chapter 12. Civil Society-by-Design: Emerging Capitalisms, Essentialist Feminism and Women's Non-Governmental Organizations in Post-Socialist Eastern Europe Kristen R. Ghodsee PART V: CIVIL SOCIETY, THE STATE, AND CITIZENSHIP Chapter 13. Gender and the Paradoxes of Social Provision: From Civil Society to Welfare State Sonya Michel Chapter 14. Fellow Feeling: A Transnational Perspective on Conceptions of Civil Society and Citizenship in White Men's Countries,A" 1890-1910 Marilyn Lake Chapter 15. Bringing the State Back In: Civil Society, Women's Movements and the State Birgit Sauer Selected Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index
