Overview
Women from the state socialist countries in Eastern Europe-what used to be called the Second World-once dominated women's activism at the United Nations, but their contributions have been largely forgotten or deemed insignificant in comparison with those of Western feminists. In Second World, Second Sex Kristen Ghodsee rescues some of this lost history by tracing the activism of Eastern European and African women during the 1975 United Nations International Year of Women and the subsequent Decade for Women (1976-1985). Focusing on case studies of state socialist Bulgaria and nonaligned but socialist-leaning Zambia, Ghodsee examines the feminist networks that developed between the Second and Third Worlds and shows how alliances between socialist women challenged American women's leadership of the global women's movement. Drawing on interviews and archival research across three continents, Ghodsee argues that international ideological competition between capitalism and socialism profoundly shaped the world women inhabit today.
Full Product Details
Author: Kristen Ghodsee
Publisher: Duke University Press
Imprint: Duke University Press
Weight: 0.476kg
ISBN: 9781478001812
ISBN 10: 147800181
Pages: 328
Publication Date: 15 February 2019
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
Besides offering a masterful reconstruction of Cold War women's activism and East-South alliances, Second World, Second Sex provides its readers with extensive and previously uncovered historical documentation, together with important methodological reflections on feminist knowledge production. The book will be of great interest for historians of gender, transnationalism, and the Cold War, and will undoubtedly expand the scope of scholarly research on transnational women's and feminist history. -- Chiara Bonfiglioli * American Historical Review * Interrogating why the activities of women in countries with strong states promoting gender equality should be deemed inauthentic vis-a-vis those in democracies that perpetuate patriarchal norms, alongside rendering the Cold War as a battle between not just capitalism and communism but also competing visions of feminism, Second World, Second Sex is essential reading for anyone in any field interested in women's activism in the twentieth century. -- Christine Varga-Harris * Slavic Review * A powerful reminder that ultimately structural conditions are of prime importance if women's emancipation is to succeed. . . . Ghodsee's book ultimately reminds as, through the often moving testimonies of former activists she has collected, that women's activism, also when attached to or even dominated the state, can be effective and progressive. -- Tanja R. Muller * Twentieth-Century Communism * Second World, Second Sex is a must read for anyone hoping to understand the complexities of a global women's rights movement that goes beyond the boundaries of Western, liberal feminism. -- Tony Pecinovsky * People's World * An engaging narrative of feminist movements during the Cold War. . . . [Ghodsee's] work is vital in documenting a neglected component of feminist history while illuminating a new resource for feminist theorists and activists interested in thinking about the political project of gender justice outside the confines of dominant, Western, liberal feminism. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. -- C. E. Rasmussen * Choice *
Second World, Second Sex has to be strongly recommended not only to scholars in Slavic studies, feminist, gender and postcolonial studies, as well as international relations, but to all those who have high expectations of the current trend of re/connecting the feminist and the climate change movements, as well as the new global actions combating inequality, racism and violence against women and girls, as necessary actions to restore the political relevance to transnational women's organizing efforts, as was the case in the 1970s and 1980s. -- Renata Jambresic Kirin * Wagadu * The Cold War's end has seen the vision and achievements of the socialist women's activists marginalized, devalued, and almost forgotten, the neoliberal consensus quickly undoing in the East and South many of the rights which had been so dearly won. Ghodsee articulates a concern that powerful forces in the West still conspire to suppress or delegitimize histories that take state socialist women's activism seriously.... Ghodsee's persistence and peerless scholarship have ensured that it will not be allowed to disappear from the mainstream narratives of feminism. -- Dominic Martin * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute * Besides offering a masterful reconstruction of Cold War women's activism and East-South alliances, Second World, Second Sex provides its readers with extensive and previously uncovered historical documentation, together with important methodological reflections on feminist knowledge production. The book will be of great interest for historians of gender, transnationalism, and the Cold War, and will undoubtedly expand the scope of scholarly research on transnational women's and feminist history. -- Chiara Bonfiglioli * American Historical Review * Interrogating why the activities of women in countries with strong states promoting gender equality should be deemed inauthentic vis-a-vis those in democracies that perpetuate patriarchal norms, alongside rendering the Cold War as a battle between not just capitalism and communism but also competing visions of feminism, Second World, Second Sex is essential reading for anyone in any field interested in women's activism in the twentieth century. -- Christine Varga-Harris * Slavic Review * A powerful reminder that ultimately structural conditions are of prime importance if women's emancipation is to succeed. . . . Ghodsee's book ultimately reminds as, through the often moving testimonies of former activists she has collected, that women's activism, also when attached to or even dominated the state, can be effective and progressive. -- Tanja R. Muller * Twentieth-Century Communism * Second World, Second Sex is a must read for anyone hoping to understand the complexities of a global women's rights movement that goes beyond the boundaries of Western, liberal feminism. -- Tony Pecinovsky * People's World * An engaging narrative of feminist movements during the Cold War. . . . [Ghodsee's] work is vital in documenting a neglected component of feminist history while illuminating a new resource for feminist theorists and activists interested in thinking about the political project of gender justice outside the confines of dominant, Western, liberal feminism. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. -- C. E. Rasmussen * Choice *
An engaging narrative of feminist movements during the Cold War. . . . [Ghodsee's] work is vital in documenting a neglected component of feminist history while illuminating a new resource for feminist theorists and activists interested in thinking about the political project of gender justice outside the confines of dominant, Western, liberal feminism. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. -- C. E. Rasmussen * Choice *
Author Information
Kristen Ghodsee is Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of eight books, including Red Hangover: Legacies of Twentieth-Century Communism, also published by Duke University Press, and most recently, Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence.
