Introduction to the special cluster of articles by feminists from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

This book explores the relations of culture, identity, and women, providing vivid illustrations from around the world of the compelling nature of Woman as cultural symbol and Woman as political pawn in male-directed power struggles.

The Women's Movement is usually referred to as if it were a constant, global phenomenon. Susan Bassnett has lived and been involved in the struggles of the women's movement in the United States, Italy and the United Kingdom, and has had extensive contacts with feminists in the German Democratic Republic. On the basis of her personal experiences and study of women's history and literature in these countries she is able to present a striking picture of the variety of feminist aims, (...) tactics and priorities in the four countries, and of the character of the women's movement in four very different cultures. Throughout, the author writes with a double commitment: first, to furthering our understanding of the diversity of aims of women's movements and their common ground - the no-man's land of female existence; second, to making her book as accessible as possible to all feminists, through drawing on her own personal experience of countries in which she has lived, worked, travelled, and made friends. (shrink)

This lucid and accessible collection explores gender and national identity within political movements in the Middle East, the Maghreb and South Asia. It reveals how nationalism, revolution and Islamization are gendered processes, and argues that in periods of political change, women are central to efforts to construct a national identity. The book focuses on predominantly Muslim movements, and includes Algerian women's experience in the national liberation movement; the struggle to construct a Bengali national identity and the creation of Bangladesh; events (...) leading to revolution and Islamization in Iran; revolution and civil war in Afghanistan; and the Palestinian intifada. (shrink)

An introduction to the experience of women in former state socialist countries, which attempts to unravel the legacy of state socialism in relation to women. The book explores women's status in East Central Europe, both before and after 1989.