1st Edition

Women and Social Class International Feminist Perspectives

Edited By Pat Mahony, Christine Zmroczek Copyright 1999
    252 Pages
    by Routledge

    252 Pages
    by Routledge

    This volume presents debates on class within an international context. Its particular focus is on women's theorized experience of social class from a variety of feminist perspectives, contextualized in relation to the countries and regions in which they live. Using personal experience as a basis, contributors cover Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Britain, Canada, Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, India, Israel, Korea, New Zealand, Poland, and the USA - iluminating the differences and similarities between regions.; Challenging the view that "class is dead" as well as the idea that it is a British phenomenon, the book argues that class needs to be regarded as a key concept in any attempt to understand women's lives. It also reflects on personal and political experiences of class around the world in order to understand the mechanisms through which class discrimination operates and is mediated by gender, sexuality, ethnicity and racism.

    Introduction Chapter 1 What does it mean to be a middle-class woman in Botswana? Chapter 2 The “new Hebrew’s” new woman: growing up Israeli and middle-class Chapter 3 Who am I? A journey across class and identity Chapter 4 Class, attainment and sexuality in late twentieth-century Britain Chapter 5 Women in and after a “classless” society Chapter 6 Class, gender and ethnicity: snapshots of a mixed Heritage Chapter 7 Class matters: Yes it does Chapter 8 Coming out Chapter 9 Class and transnational identities: a Korean-American woman in England Chapter 10 Personal reflections from the margins: an interface with race, class, nation and gender Chapter 11 Owning up to being middle class: race, gender and class in the context of migration Chapter 12 Officially known as “other”: multiethnic identities and class status Chapter 13 You nurtured me to be a carefree bird, O Mother Chapter 14 Genealogies of class Chapter 15 Questioning correspondence: an Australian woman’s account of the effects of social mobility on subjective class consciousness Chapter 16 Spilling the caviar: telling privileged class tales

    Biography

    Pat Mahony is Professor of Education at Roehampton Institute London. She has worked for many years in the areas of “equal opportunities” and teacher education and is currently engaged in a number of research projects exploring the impact and significance of government policy in these areas. She has written extensively in the areas of gender and schooling and, more recently, on the effects of “new managerialism” on policy and practice in teacher education. Christine Zmroczek is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Women’s Studies at Roehampton Institute London and Editor in Chief of Women’s Studies International Forum. Together with Pat Mahony she has edited Class Matters (London: UCL Press 1997) and is editor of the series Women and Social Class for UCL Press. Her other research interests centre on twentieth-century women’s history, oral accounts of women’s lives, ethnicity and migration. Currently she is at work on two books on second and third generation daughters.