Table Of ContentTHE ROUTLEDGE GLOBAL
HISTORY OF FEMINISM
Based on the scholarship of a global team of diverse authors, this wide-ranging handbook
surveys the history and current status of pro-women thought and activism over millennia.
The book traces the complex history of feminism across the globe, presenting its many identities,
its heated debates, its racism, its discussion of religious belief and values, its commitment to social
change, and the struggles of women around the world for gender justice. Authors approach past
understandings and today’s evolving sense of what feminism or womanism or gender justice are
from multiple viewpoints. These perspectives are geographical to highlight commonalities and
differences from region to region or nation to nation; they are also chronological, suggesting
change or continuity from the ancient world to our digital age. Across five parts, authors delve
into topics such as colonialism, empire, the arts, labor activism, family, and displacement as the
means to take the pulse of feminism from specific vantage points, highlighting that there is no
single feminist story but rather multiple portraits of a broad cast of activists and thinkers.
Comprehensive and properly global, this is the ideal volume for students and scholars of
women’s and gender history, women’s studies, social history, political movements, and feminism.
Bonnie G. Smith is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History Emerita, Rutgers
University. She is the author of essays in women’s, gender, European, and world history as well
as author, co-author, and editor of numerous books in these fields, including recently Women’s
Studies: The Basics and Women in World History: 1450 to the Present.
Nova Robinson is Associate Professor of History and International Studies at Seattle University.
Her research is situated at the intersection of women’s history, Middle Eastern history, and the
history of international governance. Her book Truly Sisters: Arab Women and International Women’s
Rights is forthcoming.
THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORIES
The Routledge Histories is a series of landmark books surveying some of the most important topics
and themes in history today. Edited and written by an international team of world-renowned
experts, they are the works against which all future books on their subjects will be judged.
THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Edited by Jean H. Quataert and Lora Wildenthal
THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE
Edited by Amanda L. Capern
THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Edited by Johannes Dillinger
THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF AMERICAN SEXUALITY
Edited by Kevin P. Murphy, Jason Ruiz and David Serlin
THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF DEATH SINCE 1800
Edited by Peter N. Stearns
THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF THE DOMESTIC SPHERE IN EUROPE
Edited by Joachim Eibach and Margareth Lanzinger
THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF POVERTY, C.1450–1800
Edited by David Hitchcock and Julia McClure
THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Edited by Paul R. Bartrop
THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF U.S. FOREIGN RELATIONS
Edited by Tyson Reeder
THE ROUTLEDGE GLOBAL HISTORY OF FEMINISM
Edited by Bonnie G. Smith and Nova Robinson
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Histories/
book-series/RHISTS
THE ROUTLEDGE GLOBAL
HISTORY OF FEMINISM
Edited by Bonnie G. Smith
and Nova Robinson
Cover image: When They See Us © Lavett Ballard Art
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Bonnie G. Smith and Nova Robinson;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Bonnie G. Smith and Nova Robinson to be identified as the authors of
the editorial material, and the right of the authors for their individual chapters, has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Smith, Bonnie G., 1940– editor. | Robinson, Nova, editor.
Title: The Routledge global history of feminism / edited by Bonnie G. Smith
and Nova Robinson.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: The Routledge histories | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021040594
Subjects: LCSH: Feminism—History. | Feminism—Cross-cultural studies.
Classification: LCC HQ1121 .R68 2022 | DDC 305.4209—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021040594
ISBN: 978-1-138-99911-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-50481-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-05004-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003050049
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
List of contributors ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 1
Bonnie G. Smith and Nova Robinson
PART 1
Feminism, what is it? 7
1 Definitions: An overview 9
Susan Kingsley Kent
2 Foundations, elements, roots 23
Bonnie G. Smith
3 Varieties of feminist activism 37
Valentine M. Moghadam
4 Feminism as global endeavor 56
Temma Kaplan and Nova Robinson
PART 2
Historical perspectives 71
5 The premodern world 73
Mika Ahuvia and Rena Lauer
v
Contents
6 The early modern world 90
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
7 The nineteenth century 105
Hyaeweol Choi
8 The twentieth century 119
Rumi Yasutake with Nova Robinson
9 The digital age and beyond 136
Kate Eichhorn
PART 3
Regional thought and activism 149
10 The Pacific 151
Kirisitina Sailiata and Stephanie Nohelani Teves
11 East Asia 163
Louise Edwards, Kyungja Jung, and Sally McLaren
12 Southeast Asia 180
Sharon A. Bong
13 South Asia 194
Ritty Lukose
14 Middle East and North Africa 208
Pernille Arenfeldt and Nawar Al-Hassan Golley
15 Sub-Saharan Africa: Religion 227
Ousseina D. Alidou
16 Sub-Saharan Africa: Rights 242
Shireen Hassim
17 Europe and Russia 257
Maria Bucur
18 Latin America and the Caribbean 271
Katherine M. Marino
19 North America 286
Laura K. Muñoz
vi
Contents
PART 4
Topics in feminism I: Politics and society 301
20 Political life and the law 303
Mary Hawkesworth
21 Empire and colonialism 320
Haejeong Hazel Hahn
22 Decolonization 336
Todd Shepard
23 Nation and nationalism 350
Mrinalini Sinha
24 Socialism 364
Zsófia Lóránd
25 Democracy 379
Mona L. Siegel
26 Thoughts: Disability 394
Maisam Alomar
27 Revolution 399
Nefertiti Takla
28 War, peace, and security 414
Aili Mari Tripp and Thomas S. Worth
29 Displacement 428
Zeynep Kıvılcım
PART 5
Topics in feminism II: Thought, structures, culture 443
30 Intersections, struggles 445
Natalie Cisneros
31 Mana Wahine 457
Georgina Tuari Stewart
32 The arts 471
Jasmine Jamillah Mahmoud
vii
Contents
33 Thoughts: The body and sexuality 486
Catherine Phipps
34 Religion 498
Ali Altaf Mian
35 Race and ethnicity 515
Courtney Sato and Randa Tawil
36 Family 533
Julia Bowes
37 Poverty, work, and labor 547
Annelise Orleck
38 Technology 562
Cindy Lin
39 Thoughts: Ecofeminism and the animal world 576
Laura Murray
Index 585
viii
CONTRIBUTORS
Mika Ahuvia is Associate Professor and the Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair in Jewish
Studies at the University of Washington. She is the author of On My Right Michael, On My Left
Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture (2021). She researches Jewish communities in the ancient
Mediterranean world.
Ousseina D. Alidou is Professor at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. She is the author
of Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency in Postcolonial Niger (2005) and
Muslim Women in Postcolonial Kenya: Leadership, Representation, Political and Social Change (2013).
Maisam Alomar is Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of
Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on the racial politics of rehabilitation and medicine.
Recent publications appear in Social Text and Feminist Studies.
Pernille Arenfeldt is Associate Professor of History at the American University of Sharjah.
Her scholarship focuses on gender relations and court culture in sixteenth-century Europe and
women’s history in the modern/contemporary Middle East. Publications include, as co-editor
with Nawar Al-Hassan Golley, Mapping Arab Women’s Movements: A Century of Transformations
from Within (2012).
Sharon A. Bong is Associate Professor of Gender and Religious Studies at the School of Arts
and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia. She is author of Becoming Queer and Religious
in Malaysia and Singapore (2020) and forum writer for the Catholic Theological Ethics in the
World Church.
Julia Bowes holds a Hansen lectureship in history at the University of Melbourne. Her schol-
arship examines how gender, race, and the family shape politics and governance in the United
States. She was awarded the 2019 Lerner-Scott Prize for the best dissertation in US women’s
history by the Organization of American Historians.
Maria Bucur is the John V. Hill Professor of History and Gender Studies at Indiana University,
Bloomington. She is the author of six monographs, several edited volumes, and many articles
on gender and citizenship, eugenics, memory and war, and gender and modernism. Her most
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