Description
Book SynopsisTraces the ways in which women have enriched the work of the United Nations from the time of its founding in 1945. This book reviews the evolution of the UN's programs aimed at benefiting the women of developing nations and the impact of women's ideas about rights, equality, and social justice on UN thinking and practice regarding development.
Trade Review"This is the 7th of a 14-volume comprehensive history of the United Nations (UN). The book begins with the UN's founding in 1945, when only 4 of the 160 signatories were women, from the Dominican Republic, Brazil, China, and the US. For gender scholars, political scientists, and academics, this is a detailed account of how women used their social capital, power, and networks to measure and highlight women's status around the world. Many familiar concepts and measures of gender inequality are traced to the UN's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a subcommittee established within the UN's first year. Equality, political suffrage, child marriage, widow rights, and all aspects ofwomen's visible and invisible work are a few of the measures and studies stemming from the commission. The book details the four global women's conferences (Mexico, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing). Surely, the impact on women's lives-particularly those of the south-is one of the UN's greatest accomplishments. Summing Up:Recommended. Most levels/librarie" -A. S. Hunter, Idaho State University
Table of ContentsContents
List of Boxes and Tables
Series Editors' Foreword Louis Emmerij, Richard Jolly, and Thomas G. Weiss
Foreword Amartya Sen
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Women, Development, and Equality: History as Inconclusive Dialogue
1. Setting the Stage for Equality, 1945–1965
2. Inscribing Development into Rights, 1966–1975
3. Questioning Development Paradigms, 1976–1985
4. Development as if Women Mattered, 1986–1995
5. Lessons from the UN's Sixth Decade, 1996–2005
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
About the United Nations Intellectual History Project
