Patriarchy

At the end of the twentieth century, after four world conferences on women, debates on the impact of economic development on the lives and status of women - including their life-options and opportunities for betterment - continue unresolved. Is patriarchy on the decline, or is it merely its form that is changing? What effect does development have on gender relations, and how do patriarchal structures affect the development process? The chapters in this book were written for a UNU/WIDER research conference convened to explore two parallel phenomena: the changing position of women and gender relations and the relevance of the concept of patriarchy, and the impact of development--and especially industrialization and wage work--on women and gender. They address questions through theoretical, historical, and empirical approaches, and provide critical analysis and macro- and micro-level data for Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian sub-continent, the Nordic region, and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Following an introduction and overview (Part 1), the book is divided into two main parts. Part II offers historical and theoretical perspectives on the evolution of women's positions in the course of development, with contributions by Sylvia Walby, John Lie, Elizabeth Dore, Sheila Carapico, Leela Kasturi, and Jane Parpart. Part III focuses on industrialization, state policies, and women workers, with contributions by Ruth Pearson, Helen Safa, Rita Gallin, Valentine Moghadam, Guy Standing, and Tuovi Allen. The book ends with an appendix of statistical tables providing descriptive data on women in the countries under consideration and others. The contributors are well-known academics and researchers who utilize the methods of economics, sociology, history, and feminist analysis in their case studies of economic development and women's positions.

The institution of the family changed hugely during the course of the twentieth century. In this major new work, Göran Therborn provides a global history and sociology of the family as an institution and of politics within the family, focusing on three dimensions of family relations: on the rights and powers of fathers and husbands; on marriage, cohabitation and extra-marital sexuality; and on population policy. Therborn's empirical analysis uses a multi-disciplinary approach to show how the major family systems of the world have been formed and developed. Therborn concludes by assessing what changes the family might see during the next century. This book will be essential reading for anybody with an interest in either the sociology or the history of the family.

America's founding mothers and fathers built gender bias into American politics. This book examines traditional prejudices against women's political participation as well as efforts to overcome these prejudices during a revolutionary era. It inquires into the shifting male hierarchies that kept some men out of politics, admitted others to a limited citizenship, and privileged a few men with leadership authority. It also assesses the impact of the founders' gender bias on modern American politics.

A coherent and focussed exploration into how Patriarchy constructed pre-capitalist and capitalist society, and its role in the transition from feudalism to capitalism.

The social consequences of infertility place poor urban women in Egypt at the center of a web of tumultuous relationships with spouses, in-laws, and neighbors. Although Egyptian patriarchy is based on the central role played by men in reproduction, women are paradoxically blamed for the failure to conceive, and they often face threats of divorce or polygyny, harassment, and community ostracism. Infertility and Patriarchy explores the lives of infertile women whose personal stories depict their daily struggles to resist disempowerment and stigmatization. Marcia C. Inhorn has produced a unique study of gender politics and family life in contemporary Egypt, concluding that the position of infertile women in Egyptian society is being determined by complex and countervailing pressures. As the influence of the patriarchal extended family wanes in urban areas, marital bonds strengthen. Yet the Islamic valorization of motherhood as women's exclusive role presents a potent threat to childless women.

Preface Introduction Part I: Traditional Influences Tribal Patriarchy, Egalitarianism and Islam in Precolonial Algeria The Civilizing Mission and the Family Part II: Modern and Neo-Traditionlist Influences The New Petty Bourgeoisie and the Muslim Doctors The Middle Class and Feminism The New Working Class and Socialism Part III: Revolutionary Influences Women and the Algerian Revolution The New Revolutionary Brotherhood Part IV: Post-Revolutionary Influence The Women's Movement, Revolutionary Puritanism, and Muslim Socialism Algeria Under Boumedienne Muslim Fundamentalism Under Chadli Benjedid Patriarchy Challenged: The Family Code and Algerian Feminists Epilogue Appendix Notes Bibliography Index

This "hopeful" book presents a new theory of psychosexual development, and concurrently, of psychosocial evolution. Morrow claims the sexual division of nature was a primordial organizing principle for all cultures. However, evolving qualities assigned by culture to women and men, have over the millennia incorporated, absorbed, or superceded biological differences. The resultant schism between femininity and masculinity represents the deepest cleavage in the human species and is crippling both men and women. Morrow's hope is that the release in each sex of repressed qualities of the other sex will allow both sexes to be what they have never been--whole. "Unleashing Our Unknown Selves begins with a critique of central paradigms in contemporary social science and ends with a provocative new theory of psychosexual development. Dr. Morrow brilliantly demonstrates why men are just as damaged as women by our present patriarchal sex/gender system." Joseph L. White Univeristy of California, Irnive