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Women and the Family: Two Decades of Change
by Beth Hess Marvin B SussmanDespite the pervasive changes that have taken place in women’s lives in the past twenty-five years--increased participation in the labor force, the attainment of higher levels of education, and higher salaries--comparable changes in the division of family labor and in the roles of men have lagged considerably. In this timely book, the editors and other experts in feminism and family studies examine the effects of two decades of influence by the women’s movement on sex roles and child rearing. While applauding some positive changes, the contributors point to powerful forces of resistance to equality between the sexes, especially “the question of family”--the fear of depriving children of maternal attachment and the belief that working mothers are placing their own interests above those of other family members--as an issue that, until fully addressed, prevents genuine equality between the sexes.
Women and the New Business Leadership
by P. Thomson T. LloydIn The Woman's Place is in the Boardroom the authors put the business case for more women on company boards. In the next book they explained how to achieve it. Here the authors discuss the role women directors can play in the reform of corporate governance systems following recent financial, crises in leadership, governance and the economy.
Women and the UN: A New History of Women's International Human Rights (Routledge Explorations in Development Studies)
by Dan Plesch Rebecca AdamiThis book provides a critical history of influential women in the United Nations and seeks to inspire empowerment with role models from bygone eras. The women whose voices this book presents helped shape UN conventions, declarations, and policies with relevance to the international human rights of women throughout the world today. From the founding of the UN and the Latin American feminist movements that pushed for gender equality in the UN Charter, up until the Security Council Resolutions on the role of women in peace and conflict, the volume reflects on how women delegates from different parts of the world have negotiated and disagreed on human rights issues related to gender within the UN throughout time. In doing so it sheds new light on how these hidden historical narratives enrich theoretical studies in international relations and global agency today. In view of contemporary feminist and postmodern critiques of the origin of human rights, uncovering women’s history of the United Nations from both Southern and Western perspectives allows us to consider questions of feminism and agency in international relations afresh. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners of law, diplomacy, history, and development studies, and brought together by a theoretical commentary by the Editors, Women and the UN will appeal to anyone whose research covers human rights, gender equality, international development, or the history of civil society.
Women and the UN: A New History of Women's International Human Rights (Routledge Explorations in Development Studies)
by Dan Plesch Rebecca AdamiThis book provides a critical history of influential women in the United Nations and seeks to inspire empowerment with role models from bygone eras. The women whose voices this book presents helped shape UN conventions, declarations, and policies with relevance to the international human rights of women throughout the world today. From the founding of the UN and the Latin American feminist movements that pushed for gender equality in the UN Charter, up until the Security Council Resolutions on the role of women in peace and conflict, the volume reflects on how women delegates from different parts of the world have negotiated and disagreed on human rights issues related to gender within the UN throughout time. In doing so it sheds new light on how these hidden historical narratives enrich theoretical studies in international relations and global agency today. In view of contemporary feminist and postmodern critiques of the origin of human rights, uncovering women’s history of the United Nations from both Southern and Western perspectives allows us to consider questions of feminism and agency in international relations afresh. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners of law, diplomacy, history, and development studies, and brought together by a theoretical commentary by the Editors, Women and the UN will appeal to anyone whose research covers human rights, gender equality, international development, or the history of civil society.
Women and Violence: The Agency of Victims and Perpetrators (Genders and Sexualities in the Social Sciences)
by Heather Widdows Herjeet MarwayChapter 4 of this book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.This edited collection explores the agency of women who do violence and have violence done to them. Topics covered include rape, pornography, prostitution, suicide bombing and domestic violence. The volume contributes to the philosophical and theoretical debate, as well as offering practical, social and political responses to the issues examined.
Women and War in Rwanda: Gender, Media and the Representation of Genocide
by Georgina HolmesThe 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which followed the death of President Habyarimana, was one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century and shamed both African and global leaderships. As wars in the Congo continue to tear apart the region, this book examines how the politics that led to the 1994 genocide continue to be played out in the international media. Scholars of political science contend that narratives are used strategically by states to influence and shape the behaviour of other actors in the international system. This book explore how, through processes of denial and revisionism, strong states with geopolitical interests in the Great Lakes region of Africa, African states directly involved in conflict, militia groups and rebels, as well as human rights activists and NGOs, all employ media narratives strategically with the aim of influencing political decision-making and public perceptions of genocide and war.Examining how international political discourse on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda is gendered, Georgina Holmes argues that states, militaries and human rights organisations use gendered narratives for political gain, and breaks new ground in analysing the role of gender in the conflict.This book is essential reading on the gendered dynamics of conflict and genocide in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo and will appeal to anyone with an interest in Gender Studies, Political Communication, Media and Film Studies, African Studies, Genocide Studies and International Relations.
Women and Wildlife Trafficking: Participants, Perpetrators and Victims (Routledge Studies in Conservation and the Environment)
by Helen U. AguThis volume examines women and wildlife trafficking via a bespoke collection of narratives, case studies and theoretical syntheses from diverse voices and disciplines. Wildlife trafficking has been documented in over one hundred and twenty countries around the world. While species extinction and animal abuse are major problems, wildlife trafficking is also associated with corruption, national insecurity, spread of zoonotic disease, undercutting sustainable development investments and erosion of cultural resources among others. The role of women in wildlife trafficking has remained woefully under-addressed, with scientists and policymakers failing to consider the important causes and consequences of the gendered dimensions of wildlife trafficking. Although the roles of women in wildlife trafficking are mostly unknown, they are not unknowable. This volume helps fill this lacuna by examining the roles and experiences of women with case studies drawn from across the world, including Mexico, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, South Africa and Norway. Women can be wildlife trafficking preventors, perpetrators, and pawns; their roles in both facilitating wildlife trafficking are considered from both a supply and a demand viewpoint. The first half of the book assesses the state of science, offering four different perspectives on how women and wildlife trafficking can be studied or evaluated. The second half of the book profiles diverse case studies from around the world, offering context-specific insight about on-the-ground activities associated with women and wildlife trafficking. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of wildlife crime, conservation, gender studies, green criminology and environmental law. It will also be of interest to NGOs and policymakers working to improve efficacy of efforts targeting wildlife crime, the illegal wildlife trade, and conservation more broadly.
Women and Wildlife Trafficking: Participants, Perpetrators and Victims (Routledge Studies in Conservation and the Environment)
by Helen U. Agu Meredith L. GoreThis volume examines women and wildlife trafficking via a bespoke collection of narratives, case studies and theoretical syntheses from diverse voices and disciplines. Wildlife trafficking has been documented in over one hundred and twenty countries around the world. While species extinction and animal abuse are major problems, wildlife trafficking is also associated with corruption, national insecurity, spread of zoonotic disease, undercutting sustainable development investments and erosion of cultural resources among others. The role of women in wildlife trafficking has remained woefully under-addressed, with scientists and policymakers failing to consider the important causes and consequences of the gendered dimensions of wildlife trafficking. Although the roles of women in wildlife trafficking are mostly unknown, they are not unknowable. This volume helps fill this lacuna by examining the roles and experiences of women with case studies drawn from across the world, including Mexico, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, South Africa and Norway. Women can be wildlife trafficking preventors, perpetrators, and pawns; their roles in both facilitating wildlife trafficking are considered from both a supply and a demand viewpoint. The first half of the book assesses the state of science, offering four different perspectives on how women and wildlife trafficking can be studied or evaluated. The second half of the book profiles diverse case studies from around the world, offering context-specific insight about on-the-ground activities associated with women and wildlife trafficking. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of wildlife crime, conservation, gender studies, green criminology and environmental law. It will also be of interest to NGOs and policymakers working to improve efficacy of efforts targeting wildlife crime, the illegal wildlife trade, and conservation more broadly.
Women as Imams: Classical Islamic Sources and Modern Debates on Leading Prayer (Gender And Islam Ser.)
by Simonetta CalderiniThere is a long and rich history of opinion centred on female prayer leadership in Islam that has occupied the minds of theologians and jurists alike. It includes outright prohibition, dislike, permissibility under certain conditions and, although rarely, unrestricted sanction, or even endorsement.This book discusses debates drawn from scholars of the formative period of Islam who engaged with the issue of female prayer leadership. Simonetta Calderini critically analyses their arguments, puts them into their historical context, and, for the first time, tracks down how they have informed current views on female imama (prayer leadership). In presenting the variety of opinions discussed in the past by Sunni and Shi'i scholars, and some of the Sufis among them, the book uncovers how they are, at present, being used selectively, depending on modern agendas and biases. It also reviews the roles and types of authority of current women imams in diverse contexts spanning from Asia, Africa and Europe to America. The research offers readers the opportunity to gain nuancedanswers to the question of female imama today that may lead to informed discussions and to change, if not necessarily in practices then at the very least in attitudes.This ground-breaking book interrogates the cases of women who are reported to have led prayer in the past. It then analyses the voices of current women imams, many of whom engage with those women of the past to validate their own roles in the present and so pave the way for the future.
Women as Imams: Classical Islamic Sources and Modern Debates on Leading Prayer
by Simonetta CalderiniThere is a long and rich history of opinion centred on female prayer leadership in Islam that has occupied the minds of theologians and jurists alike. It includes outright prohibition, dislike, permissibility under certain conditions and, although rarely, unrestricted sanction, or even endorsement.This book discusses debates drawn from scholars of the formative period of Islam who engaged with the issue of female prayer leadership. Simonetta Calderini critically analyses their arguments, puts them into their historical context, and, for the first time, tracks down how they have informed current views on female imama (prayer leadership). In presenting the variety of opinions discussed in the past by Sunni and Shi'i scholars, and some of the Sufis among them, the book uncovers how they are, at present, being used selectively, depending on modern agendas and biases. It also reviews the roles and types of authority of current women imams in diverse contexts spanning from Asia, Africa and Europe to America. The research offers readers the opportunity to gain nuancedanswers to the question of female imama today that may lead to informed discussions and to change, if not necessarily in practices then at the very least in attitudes.This ground-breaking book interrogates the cases of women who are reported to have led prayer in the past. It then analyses the voices of current women imams, many of whom engage with those women of the past to validate their own roles in the present and so pave the way for the future.
Women as War Criminals: Gender, Agency, and Justice
by Jessica Trisko Darden Izabela StefljaWomen war criminals are far more common than we think. From the Holocaust to ethnic cleansing in the Balkans to the Rwandan genocide, women have perpetrated heinous crimes. Few have been punished. These women go unnoticed because their very existence challenges our assumptions about war and about women. Biases about women as peaceful and innocent prevent us from "seeing" women as war criminals—and prevent postconflict justice systems from assigning women blame. Women as War Criminals argues that women are just as capable as men of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. In addition to unsettling assumptions about women as agents of peace and reconciliation, the book highlights the gendered dynamics of law, and demonstrates that women are adept at using gender instrumentally to fight for better conditions and reduced sentences when war ends. The book presents the legal cases of four women: the President (Biljana Plavšić), the Minister (Pauline Nyiramasuhuko), the Soldier (Lynndie England), and the Student (Hoda Muthana). Each woman's complex identity influenced her treatment by legal systems and her ability to mount a gendered defense before the court. Justice, as Steflja and Trisko Darden show, is not blind to gender.
Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance
by J Dianne Garner Rosemary Sarri Josefina Figueira-McdonoughA compelling look at the crisis of disadvantaged women This powerful document takes a sobering look at the phenomenon of marginalized women pushed to the edges of society, holding on with the barest of hope and extraordinary bravery. Handicapped by the increasing societal inequality they face as an everyday fact of life, these women (and in many cases, their children) have been disconnected from the mainstream for reasons of age, race, gender, health, incarceration, domestic abuse, unwanted pregnancy, unemployment, and economic circumstance. They are poor in an affluent society, powerless in a powerful nation, and the suffering caused by their exclusion is poignant and troubling.Eloquently illustrated with poetry, art, and prose created by marginalized women, Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance makes a compelling argument for social change. The book offers a no-holds-barred look at how economic restructuring, welfare reform, neo-conservative ideology, and institutional exclusion have locked women into subservient, substandard roles, stripping them of their citizenship and rendering them expendable. Diverse authors track the life cycle of marginalized women, from teenage pregnancy to the lonliness of older women in poverty or prison.Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance addresses: the effects of welfare reform the forgotten group: women in prison and jail low-income women and housing women marginalized by substance abuse, poverty, and incarceration teenage pregnancy children and their incarcerated mothers recidivism and reintegration women, law, and the justice system and much more!Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance acknowledges the long history of the inequality faced by women living in exclusion but focuses on the present with a hopeful but realistic eye toward the future. It is an indispensible resource for sociology, social work, legal and penal system professionals, and academics, and an essential read for everyone.
Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance
by J Dianne Garner Rosemary Sarri Josefina Figueira-McdonoughA compelling look at the crisis of disadvantaged women This powerful document takes a sobering look at the phenomenon of marginalized women pushed to the edges of society, holding on with the barest of hope and extraordinary bravery. Handicapped by the increasing societal inequality they face as an everyday fact of life, these women (and in many cases, their children) have been disconnected from the mainstream for reasons of age, race, gender, health, incarceration, domestic abuse, unwanted pregnancy, unemployment, and economic circumstance. They are poor in an affluent society, powerless in a powerful nation, and the suffering caused by their exclusion is poignant and troubling.Eloquently illustrated with poetry, art, and prose created by marginalized women, Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance makes a compelling argument for social change. The book offers a no-holds-barred look at how economic restructuring, welfare reform, neo-conservative ideology, and institutional exclusion have locked women into subservient, substandard roles, stripping them of their citizenship and rendering them expendable. Diverse authors track the life cycle of marginalized women, from teenage pregnancy to the lonliness of older women in poverty or prison.Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance addresses: the effects of welfare reform the forgotten group: women in prison and jail low-income women and housing women marginalized by substance abuse, poverty, and incarceration teenage pregnancy children and their incarcerated mothers recidivism and reintegration women, law, and the justice system and much more!Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance acknowledges the long history of the inequality faced by women living in exclusion but focuses on the present with a hopeful but realistic eye toward the future. It is an indispensible resource for sociology, social work, legal and penal system professionals, and academics, and an essential read for everyone.
Women before the court: Law and patriarchy in the Anglo-American world, 1600–1800 (Gender in History)
by Lindsay R. MooreThis book offers an innovative, comparative approach to the study of women’s legal rights during a formative period of Anglo–American history. It traces how colonists transplanted English legal institutions to America, examines the remarkable depth of women’s legal knowledge and shows how the law increasingly undermined patriarchal relationships between parents and children, masters and servants, husbands and wives. The book will be of interest to scholars of Britain and colonial America, and to laypeople interested in how women in the past navigated and negotiated the structures of authority that governed them. It is packed with fascinating stories that women related to the courts in cases ranging from murder and abuse to debt and estate litigation. Ultimately, it makes a remarkable contribution to our understandings of law, power and gender in the early modern world.
Women before the court: Law and patriarchy in the Anglo-American world, 1600–1800 (Gender in History)
by Lindsay R. MooreThis book offers an innovative, comparative approach to the study of women’s legal rights during a formative period of Anglo–American history. It traces how colonists transplanted English legal institutions to America, examines the remarkable depth of women’s legal knowledge and shows how the law increasingly undermined patriarchal relationships between parents and children, masters and servants, husbands and wives. The book will be of interest to scholars of Britain and colonial America, and to laypeople interested in how women in the past navigated and negotiated the structures of authority that governed them. It is packed with fascinating stories that women related to the courts in cases ranging from murder and abuse to debt and estate litigation. Ultimately, it makes a remarkable contribution to our understandings of law, power and gender in the early modern world.
Women before the court: Law and patriarchy in the Anglo-American world, 1600–1800 (Gender in History)
by Lindsay R. MooreThis book offers an innovative, comparative approach to the study of women’s legal rights during a formative period of Anglo–American history. It traces how colonists transplanted English legal institutions to America, examines the remarkable depth of women’s legal knowledge and shows how the law increasingly undermined patriarchal relationships between parents and children, masters and servants, husbands and wives. The book will be of interest to scholars of Britain and colonial America, and to laypeople interested in how women in the past navigated and negotiated the structures of authority that governed them. It is packed with fascinating stories that women related to the courts in cases ranging from murder and abuse to debt and estate litigation. Ultimately, it makes a remarkable contribution to our understandings of law, power and gender in the early modern world.
Women Courageous: Leading through the Labyrinth
by Jennifer Moss Breen Madeleine Van Der Steege Suzanne Stigler Martin Judith L. Glick-SmithWomen Courageous: Leading Through the Labyrinth is a collection of true experiences by women from different parts of the world, leading in the political, academic, non-profit public, and private sectors. The stories illustrate their courage and also include a scholarly analysis to reshape our understanding of courage - how it shows up, develops, and facilitates transformation. Through this work, the editors offer a new definition: 'Courage is pushing forward, step by step, while everything is holding you back. Often unnoticed by others, courageous acts come with great emotional challenges, and also with a sense of purpose and determination. Courage is how we transform, not only ourselves but those we support and love and the work to which we have dedicated our lives.' This international group of authors weaves insights, research, and practices gleaned from walking the leadership labyrinth in their military, aerospace, public works, university, and school education, and nonprofit careers. The book offers stories of ambition, self-actualization, co-creation, as well as conflict, loss, betrayal, and healing, that will echo your own experience. The book will surprise you with new wisdom and releases fresh courage in all of us, to rise and meet the monumental challenges of this moment.
Women Courageous: Leading through the Labyrinth
by Jennifer Moss Breen, Madeleine van der Steege, Suzanne Martin, Judith L. Glick-SmithWomen Courageous: Leading Through the Labyrinth is a collection of true experiences by women from different parts of the world, leading in the political, academic, non-profit public, and private sectors. The stories illustrate their courage and also include a scholarly analysis to reshape our understanding of courage - how it shows up, develops, and facilitates transformation. Through this work, the editors offer a new definition: 'Courage is pushing forward, step by step, while everything is holding you back. Often unnoticed by others, courageous acts come with great emotional challenges, and also with a sense of purpose and determination. Courage is how we transform, not only ourselves but those we support and love and the work to which we have dedicated our lives.' This international group of authors weaves insights, research, and practices gleaned from walking the leadership labyrinth in their military, aerospace, public works, university, and school education, and nonprofit careers. The book offers stories of ambition, self-actualization, co-creation, as well as conflict, loss, betrayal, and healing, that will echo your own experience. The book will surprise you with new wisdom and releases fresh courage in all of us, to rise and meet the monumental challenges of this moment.
Women Criminals [2 volumes]: An Encyclopedia of People and Issues [2 volumes]
A unique, two-volume study that examines female crime and the women who commit it.The two-volume Women Criminals: An Encyclopedia of People and Issues addresses both key topics and key figures in women's crime. The first volume provides topical essays about areas critical to the understanding of female criminals, such as the definition of women's crime, explanations of women's criminality, ethnic and age diversity in female criminals, and responses of the criminal justice system. The second volume comprises biographical entries profiling women who are obviously criminals, such as Aileen Wuornos and Myra Hindley, and also women who were victims of circumstance, unjust laws, or narrowly applied definitions of crime, such as Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, and Sophie Scholl.In addition to highlighting the breadth of women's criminality, these portraits provide a holistic, multifaceted understanding of the dynamics of women's crime and why it occurs, connecting the individual stories to the larger social-scientific perspectives. Care has been taken to include the women's own voices and perspectives where possible and to address the intentions and reasoning of the system that responded to their criminality.
Women Directors: The Italian Way and Beyond
by P. Profeta L. Aliberti A. Casarico M. D'Amico A. PuccioWomen Directors analyzes the Italian law on gender quotas in boards as a vital opportunity for the country and a key international case. It provides a broad perspective of the new Italian experience, which has the potential of influencing the way of addressing gender issues worldwide.
Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law (PDF)
by Judith TuckerIn what ways has Islamic law discriminated against women and privileged men? What rights and power have been accorded to Muslim women, and how have they used the legal system to enhance their social and economic position? In an analysis of Islamic law through the prism of gender, Judith Tucker tackles these complex questions relating to the position of women in Islamic society, and to the ways in which the legal system impacted on the family, property rights, space and sexuality, from classical and medieval times to the present. Working with concepts drawn from feminist legal theory and by using particular cases to illustrate her arguments, the author systematically addresses questions of discrimination and expectation - what did men expect of their womenfolk - and of how the language of the law contributed to that discrimination, infecting the system and all those who participated in it.
Women Farmers: Unheard Being Heard (Sustainability Sciences in Asia and Africa)
by Sugandha Munshi Madhulika SinghThis edited volume celebrates the positive stories and small changes happening with respect to gender equality in the field of agriculture. This book identify crisis which a woman faces in the field of agriculture as a farmer. The book shares unsung stories of women farmers who are bringing change at the grassroots. It puts together the positive developments experienced by the experts, researchers, professional while working for and with women farmers, to highlight the challenges to bring equity in agriculture. Women in agriculture often lack identity where either they are recognized as farmer’s wife or a farm labourer. Women farmers who contribute 60 percent in to farm practices like sowing, transplanting, fertilizer application, weeding, harvesting, winnowing are merely recognised and provided an equal level playing field. Women are also found participating in the various forms of processing and marketing of agriculture produce, along with the cultivation but system has failed to protect their rights and offer them a platform to voice their concerns. This book shares the process, challenges, experience, strategy from the narrative of progressive women farmers so as to highlight and understand what it takes to bring changes for achieving the goals of an equitable farming ecosystems. The book is a relevant reading material for students, researchers, professionals and policy advocates in agriculture and gender research.
Women, Gender, and Constitutionalism in Latin America
by Francisca Pou Giménez, Ruth Rubio Marín, and Verónica Undurraga ValdésThis book discusses to what extent and how constitutional design and practice in Latin America have helped in combatting the subordination of women and LGBTQIA+ people. Covering 11 jurisdictions, the chapters identify the main elements of the constitutional gender order and survey jurisprudential and legislative developments in different areas, incorporating contextual analysis and references to history, political dynamics, social movements, feminist struggles, normative efficacy, and policy.In the context of a constitutionalism that has been celebrated as particularly innovative and socially engaged, the book assesses constitutional performance in the quest to supersede the separate gendered spheres tradition and the subordination of women and sexual minorities to heteronormative hegemony. It fills an important gap in the field of gender and constitutionalism, which has paid very little attention to Latin America compared to the Anglo-American legal world and continental Europe. It identifies regional trends, but also variables which account for the diversity of approaches in various jurisdictions.The book provides much-needed insight into matters that are relevant for legal and socio-legal scholars, an ever-growing number of social actors and movements, and all those interested in comparative constitutionalism and in the intersections between law and gender.
Women, Gender, and Constitutionalism in Latin America
This book discusses to what extent and how constitutional design and practice in Latin America have helped in combatting the subordination of women and LGBTQIA+ people. Covering 11 jurisdictions, the chapters identify the main elements of the constitutional gender order and survey jurisprudential and legislative developments in different areas, incorporating contextual analysis and references to history, political dynamics, social movements, feminist struggles, normative efficacy, and policy.In the context of a constitutionalism that has been celebrated as particularly innovative and socially engaged, the book assesses constitutional performance in the quest to supersede the separate gendered spheres tradition and the subordination of women and sexual minorities to heteronormative hegemony. It fills an important gap in the field of gender and constitutionalism, which has paid very little attention to Latin America compared to the Anglo-American legal world and continental Europe. It identifies regional trends, but also variables which account for the diversity of approaches in various jurisdictions.The book provides much-needed insight into matters that are relevant for legal and socio-legal scholars, an ever-growing number of social actors and movements, and all those interested in comparative constitutionalism and in the intersections between law and gender.
Women Going Backwards: Law and Change in a Family Unfriendly Society (Routledge Revivals)
by Sandra BernsThis title was first published in 2002. Gender has become a culturally laden signifier. Sometimes used to differentiate the social from the biological, gender itself has become gendered. In common parlance gender issues often slide inexorably into women's issues and are in that way designated as marginal and outside the concerns and lives of ordinary men and women. In this book, signifiers such as gender, worker and family are unpacked and suggestions are made as to how common usage of these signifiers reinforce existing practices and act as barriers to change. Some of these changes are legal, others are social and others are driven by political and policy agendas. By looking at five areas: equal opportunity law, family law, industrial relations law, social welfare law and taxation law, which are all profoundly gendered, the author examines ways in which men and women see their roles and choices and how these are related to the state, as citizens. The author then examines the definition of citizenship and looks in detail at the concept of the unencumbered citizen, who is unencumbered by interpersonal obligations, responsibilities and beliefs, using comparative material from Australia, North America and the United Kingdom.