Global Empowerment of Women: Responses to Globalization and Politicized Religions

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Carolyn M. Elliott
Routledge, 2007 M12 12 - 416 pages

The empowerment of women is a broadly endorsed strategy for solving a host of difficult problems, from child poverty to gender violence to international development. The seventeen international scholars in this multi-disciplinary volume offer thoughtful critiques of the notion of empowerment based on their studies in twenty countries in all regions of the world. The comparative introduction places concepts of empowerment in the context of models of the market and of community, showing how contradictions in these models as they are enacted on the ground provide both spaces and constraints for women. The chapters consider opportunities for women in the context of globalization, resurgent nationalism and politicized religion, cultures of masculinity, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. They show how initiatives at national or global levels are transformed by local cultures and power structures, and demonstrate the fruitfulness of tensions between universal values of human rights and contextualized understandings. This landmark, multi-disciplinary collection of original studies by distinguished international feminist scholars will be an essential addition to the fields of Political Science, Women’s Studies, Economics, Sociology, International Development, and Environmental Studies.

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Contents

Preface
Markets Communities and Empowerment
Gender and Neoliberal Punishment in
Reproductive Technologies
Opportunities and Contradictions
Women in Saudi Arabia
Negotiating with Multiple Patriarchies
The Case of
Commissions
Rape Trauma and Meaning
What Have Boys
Religion Violence and Womens
What Does
The Criminalization of Youth
Feminists the Catholic Church and
Works Cited

Law as a Site of Struggle
Shariah Activism in Nigeria Under Hudud
Gender and EU Accession
Contributors
Index
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

Carolyn Margaret Elliot is Professor Emerita of Political Science, University of Vermont.

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