Gender and Power Towards Equality and Democratic Governance [Hardcover]

Despite explicit commitments to gender equality, women experience complex modes of disadvantage and discrimination in all nations of the world. Offering sophisticated insights into the persistence of gendered differences in opportunities, roles, power, and rights in societies across the globe, this volume investigates factors that both enable and constrain women's advancement. From intimate relations within families, to social norms, relations, ideologies, and structures of power, to political institutions, electoral systems, and public policies, the chapters analyze possibilities for and obstacles to inclusive democratic practices and identify interventions essential to enable democratic values to take root. Contributors from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the USA provide detailed assessments of the social, economic, and political condition of women, their mobilizations to produce transform gendered power and authority in diverse nations, and their efforts to enhance the quality of their lives, their communities, and democratic governance.

'This unique collection couples interdisciplinary breadth with a rare depth of inclusivity. We read chapters from political studies, sociology, gender studies and psychoanalysis and from North, South, East and West. Yet all bring an acute spotlight to bear on what is surely still a key global crisis the strange and familiar fusion of gender dynamics and inequalities of power. The book wears its immense learning lightly and displays a heart-warming compassion and commitment to justice and equality.' Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology, University of Essex, UK, and author of A New Therapy for Politics?

'In the 1990s a tectonic shift took place as gender indicators became for the first time an internationally accepted measure of the quality of democracy. These new democratic norms meant the absence of women from public decision-making was construed as a democraticl$