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Book Review
Global Feminisms since 1945. Edited by BONNIE G. SMITH. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Pp. xii + 319. ISBN0–415–18490–8 (cloth), 0–415–18491–6 (paper).
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"You can only get the real taste of dried fish and women," according to a Korean proverb, "if you beat them once every 3 days" (p.121). This typifies the appalling cultural, social, political, and economic obstacles women have faced, even in very recent times, around the world. In this book Bonnie G. Smith has drawn together fourteen chapters that explore the various ways in which postwar feminisms have emerged to confront these challenges. The contributions, all of them reprinted from earlier journal articles, edited collections, or monographs, appear in four parts. |
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After Smith's brief introduction, Part I focuses on feminism and "nation-building." Margot Badran begins by examining the complex interplay of feminism, nation-building, and Islam in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Egypt. Mary Ann Tétreault thenlooks at women and revolution in Vietnam, and the section ends with Zengie Mangaliso's brief chapter on women and nation-building in South Africa. |
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Part II, "Sources of Activism," follows. Here, Yvonne Corcoran-Nantes stresses the complexity with which Brazilian women have developed a political consciousness. Wilhelmina Oduol and Wanjiku Mukabi Kabira next offer their study of women's groups and individual activists in Kenya, followed by Miriam Ching Yoon Louie's assessment of South Korean feminism, which has emerged as part of the broader minjung undong, or mass populist movement. |
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