Women and Social Class: International Feminist Perspectives

by Mahony,Pat; Mahony,Pat

• ISBN13: 9781857289305
• ISBN10: 1857289307
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-09-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors	vii
Introduction	1	(8)
Christine Zmroczek
Pat Mahony
What does it mean to be a middle-class woman in Botswana?	9	(16)
Changu Mannathoko
The ``new Hebrew's'' new woman: growing up Israeli and middle-class	25	(12)
Ronit Lentin
Who am I? A journey across class and identity	37	(14)
Gaby Weiner
Class, attainment and sexuality in late twentieth-century Britain	51	(18)
Valerie Walkerdine
Helen Lucey
June Melody
Women in and after a ``classless'' society	69	(16)
Hana Havelkova
Class, gender and ethnicity: snapshots of a mixed heritage	85	(20)
Christine Zmroczek
Class matters: Yes it does	105	(10)
Janice G. Raymond
Coming out	115	(18)
Frances A. Maher
Class and transnational identities: a Korean-American woman in England	133	(12)
Miri Song
Personal reflections from the margins: an interface with race, class, nation and gender	145	(12)
Anita Franklin
Owning up to being middle class: race, gender and class in the context of migration	157	(10)
Maher Anjum
Officially known as ``other'': multiethnic identities and class status	167	(18)
Leela MadhavaRau
You nurtured me to be a carefree bird, O Mother	185	(14)
Bandana Pattanaik
Genealogies of class	199	(12)
Susan Hawthorne
Questioning correspondence: an Australian woman's account of the effects of social mobility on subjective class consciousness	211	(14)
Elizabeth J. Hatton
Spilling the caviar: telling privileged class tales	225	(10)
Laurel Guymer
Index	235