The Challenge of Local Feminisms: Women's Movements in Global Perspective (Social Change in Global Perspective)

Rating:
Summary: Responding to Women's Issues Around the World
Review: I have taught this book once in a course entitled Global Feminism and will be teaching it again in the fall of 2001. Basu's work is well organized, with each chapter on a specific country headed by a box containing important statistics. However, this work is not theoretical, but rather offers a compendium of information (history, political overview, issues, women's organizations addressing those issues and their history)about many individual countries. Thus, it can be used in conjunction with a more theoretical work to gain a good sense of issues in particular cultures. It is also quite useful in gaining an overview of women's issues and movements around the world. Unlike some of the more theoretical works on transnational feminism, Basu's style is quite easy to read and make sense of. Students did not find it particularly absorbing but found it very helpful in completing team projects on feminist issues. The Challenge of Local Feminisms is a handbook rather than something to sink your teeth into intellectually, but it's clearly a very useful book to have on one's shelf.