The Women's Movements of the United States and Western Europe Consciousness, Political Opportunity, and Public Policy

Although many of the social movements born in the 1960s and 1970s have expired, the feminist movement is one of the few survivors. Yet the relative infrequence of protests, demonstrations, and marches, the dissolution of the earlier consciousness-raising groups and the more audible self-criticism within the movement has signaled to some movement-watchers that contemporary feminism has spent its force. Obviously, there is a need to gauge exactly where the women's movement stands today. This book seeks to fill a gap in feminist scholarship by focusing on the women's movements and the different opportunities their political environments provide. Offering comparisons of the feminist movements in seven countries, the essays seek to assess the power and potential of the feminist movement in Western Europe and the United States. Author note:Mary Fainsod Katzensteinis Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University.Carol McClurg Muelleris Associate Professor of Sociology at Arizona State University, West.