| Samenvatting: | This book reconstructs the little-known history of those political struggles women launched in Asia and the Middle East from the late 19th century onwards. Kumari Jayawardena gives detailed accounts of women's movements in several Muslim countries - Egypt, Turkey and Iran - and Asian counries - India, Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Korea and the Philippines.
She distinguishes between the growth of feminism the movement for women's emancipation, and women's participation in the wider national and revolutionary struggles that took place. Many Third World women from the emerging national bourgeoisie did join the struggle for national liberation. Some stressed emancipation issues - equal rights, and legal reforms to end discrimination against women - within the existing social structures. Other women raised more basic feminist issues concerning Muslim and Asian women's subordination in the family and the structures of society generally. These women fought for the right to control their own in the home and outside, and to change those social institutions that contributed to their subordination.
Kumari Jayawardena's book challenges the view that feminism is a foreign ideology currently being imposed on Third World countries. She also brings back into the mainstream of history those women who played a part in the national liberation and revolutionary movements of their counries.
Important implications exist in this book for the modern struggles of those Third World women who have the courage today to stress the importance of their own liberation as women, while participating in the movements for national liberation and socialism that are arising in more and more parts of the Third World. |
| Trefwoorden: | Feminisme, nationalisme, Derde wereld, Azië, Midden-Oosten, vrouwen, geschiedenis, vrouwenbeweging, Moslims, Egypte, Turkije, Iran, India, Sri Lanka, China, Indonesië, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Philippijnen, mensenrechten, |