This book explores recent social policy reforms and innovations in Chile. Focusing on four major reform episodes — health, pensions, childcare, and maternity leave — Silke Staab unveils the complex interplay of factors that have shaped the successes and failures of actors pursuing positive gender change in social policy. She shows that even in highly constrained settings positive gender change is possible, but that its scope and quality are bound to vary in response to sector-specific institutional constraints and opportunities.
This book explores recent social policy reforms and innovations in Chile. Focusing on four major reform episodes — health, pensions, childcare, and maternity leave — Silke Staab unveils the complex interplay of factors that have shaped the successes and failures of actors pursuing positive gender change in social policy. She shows that even in highly constrained settings positive gender change is possible, but that its scope and quality are bound to vary in response to sector-specific institutional constraints and opportunities.
The word “mother” traditionally meant a woman who bears and nurtures a child. In recent decades, changes in social norms and public policy as well as advances in reproductive technologies and the development of markets for procreation and care have radically expanded definitions of motherhood. But while maternity has become a matter of choice for more women, the freedom to make reproductive decisions is unevenly distributed. Restrictive policies, socioeconomic disadvantages, cultural mores, and discrimination force some women into motherhood and prevent others from caring for their children. Reassembling Motherhood brings together contributors from across the disciplines to consider the transformation of motherhood as both an identity and a role. It examines how the processes of bearing and rearing a child are being restructured as reproductive labor and care work change around the globe. The authors examine issues such as artificial reproductive technologies, surrogacy, fetal ultrasounds, adoption, nonparental care, and the legal status of kinship, showing how complex chains of procreation and childcare have simultaneously generated greater liberty and new forms of constraint. Emphasizing the tension between the liberalization of procreation and care on the one hand, and the limits to their democratization due to race, class, and global inequality on the other, the book highlights debates that have emerged as these multifaceted changes have led to both the fragmentation and reassembling of motherhood.
In the past thirty years, women's representation and gender equality has developed unevenly in Latin America. Some countries have experienced large increases in gender equality in political offices, whereas others have not, and even within countries, some political arenas have become more gender equal whereas others continue to exude intense gender inequality. These patterns are inconsistent with explanations of social and cultural improvements in gender equality leading to improved gender equality in political office. Gender and Representation in Latin America argues instead that gender inequality in political representation in Latin America is rooted in institutions and the democratic challenges and political crises facing Latin American countries and that these challenges matter for the number of women and men elected to office, what they do once there, how much power they gain access to, and how their presence and actions influence democracy and society more broadly. The book draws upon the expertise of top scholars of women, gender, and political institutions in Latin America to analyze the institutional and contextual causes and consequences of women's representation in Latin America. It does this in part 1 with chapters that analyze gender and political representation regionwide in each of five different "arenas of representation"-the presidency, cabinets, national legislatures, political parties, and subnational governments. In part 2, it provides chapters that analyze gender and representation in each of seven different countries-Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. The authors bring novel insights and impressive new data to their analyses, helping to make this one of the most comprehensive books on gender and political representation in Latin America today.
Desired States challenges the notion that in some cultures, sex and sexuality have become privatized and located in individual subjectivity rather than in public political practices and institutions. Instead, the book contends that desire is a central aspect of political culture. Based on fieldwork and archival research, Frazier explores the gendered and sexualized dynamics of political culture in Chile, an imperialist context, asking how people connect with and become mobilized in political projects in some cases or, in others, become disaffected or are excluded to varying degrees. The book situates the state in a rich and changing context of transnational and localized movements, imperialist interests, geo-political conflicts, and market forces to explore the broader struggles of desiring subjects, especially in those dimensions of life that are explicitly sexual and amorous: free love movements, marriage, the sixties’ sexual revolution in Cold War contexts, prostitution policies, ideas about men’s gratification, the charisma of leaders, and sexual/domestic violence against women.
This Handbook brings together leading interdisciplinary scholarship on the gendered nature of the international political economy. Spanning a wide range of theoretical traditions and empirical foci, it explores the multifaceted ways in which gender relations constitute and are shaped by global politico-economic processes. It further interrogates the gendered ideologies and discourses that underpin everyday practices from the local to the global. The chapters in this collection identify, analyse, critique and challenge gender-based inequalities, whilst also highlighting the intersectional nature of gendered oppressions in the contemporary world order.
Since the return of democracy to Latin America, policies intended to promote the inclusion of women and other underrepresented groups have been increasingly adopted throughout the region. Gender quotas have been one of the most popular and effective mechanisms employed in elections and other contexts in Latin America. This volume begins with an introduction to gender quotas, including discussion of the types and merits of gender quotas, alternative approaches to the study of quotas, and their interactions with different kinds of electoral systems. Successive chapters examine the adoption of gender quotas and their impacts in the three largest South American countries by area—Argentina, Brazil, and Peru—at both national and subnational levels. These chapters also focus on specific topics that stand out in the unique experiences of these countries: substantive representation in the case of Argentina, gender and campaign finance in the case of Brazil, and regional differences in the impact of electoral rules in the case of Peru. Through careful analysis, this volume presents a nuanced picture of how different types of electoral systems may affect the election of women and the effectiveness of quotas.
This book discusses the current tendencies in women’s representation and their role in politics in Latin American countries from three different perspectives. Firstly, the authors examine cultural, political-partisan and organizational obstacles that women face in and outside institutions. Secondly, the book explores barriers in political reality, such as gender legislation implementation, public administration and international cooperation, and proposes solutions, supported by successful experiences, emphasising the nonlinearity of the implementation process. Thirdly, the authors highlight the role of women in politics at the subnational level. The book combines academic expertise in various disciplines with contributions from practitioners within national and international institutions to broaden the reader’s understanding of women in Latin American politics.
Political sociology is a large and expanding field with many new developments, and The New Handbook of Political Sociology supplies the knowledge necessary to keep up with this exciting field. Written by a distinguished group of leading scholars in sociology, this volume provides a survey of this vibrant and growing field in the new millennium. The Handbook presents the field in six parts: theories of political sociology, the information and knowledge explosion, the state and political parties, civil society and citizenship, the varieties of state policies, and globalization and how it affects politics. Covering all subareas of the field with both theoretical orientations and empirical studies, it directly connects scholars with current research in the field. A total reconceptualization of the first edition, the new handbook features nine additional chapters and highlights the impact of the media and big data.
Women, Business and the Law 2021 is the seventh in a series of annual studies measuring the laws and regulations that affect women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies. The project presents eight indicators structured around women’s interactions with the law as they move through their lives and careers: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. This year’s report updates all indicators as of October 1, 2020 and builds evidence of the links between legal gender equality and women’s economic inclusion. By examining the economic decisions women make throughout their working lives, as well as the pace of reform over the past 50 years, Women, Business and the Law 2021 makes an important contribution to research and policy discussions about the state of women’s economic empowerment. Prepared during a global pandemic that threatens progress toward gender equality, this edition also includes important findings on government responses to COVID-19 and pilot research related to childcare and women’s access to justice.
