Gender and Social Movements (Gender Lens) - Softcover

M. Bahati Kuumba's contribution to The Gender Lens Series, Gender and Social Movements, is an interesting and useful primer on the gendering of social movements....Kuumba should be congratulated for making it clear that social movements scholars can no longer proceed as if their theories are gender-neutral or as if insurgency is not gendered. As well, she provides an insightful map of the gendered terrain of movements and contemporary research on this topic, replete with helpful theoretical and empirical examples from the [American Civil Rights movement] and [South African National Liberation movement]. -- Jennifer Earl, Univeristy of California-Santa Barbara * Contemporary Sociology * Drawing on recent scholarship in women's studies, the author ably shows how women contributed to the [US Civil Rights Movement and the South African National Liberation Movement] differently from men, echoing women's very different place in the structure and daily life of the black U.S. and urban South Africa. Written for researchers, this book provides a solid summary of the theoretical issues entailed in integrating gender analysis with social movement analysis. -- M. Greenwald, (University of Pittsburgh) * CHOICE *

In this brief text examining gender roles in social movements, M. Bahati Kuumba shows how liberation struggles are viewed through women's eyes and how gender affects women's mobilization, strategies, and outcomes in social movement organizations. Gender and Social Movements is the ideal text to introduce a sophisticated view of race and gender into social movement courses.