Women, Empires, and Body Politics at the United Nations, 1946-1975

Women, Empires, and Body Politics at the United Nations, 1946-1975 tells the story of how women's bodies were at the center of the international politics of women's rights in the postwar period. Giusi Russo focuses on the United Nation Commission on the Status of Women and its multiple interactions with the colonial and postcolonial worlds, showing how--depending on the setting and the inquiry--liberal, imperial, and transnational feminisms could coexist.

Russo suggests that in the early stages of identifying discriminating agents in women's lives, UN commissioners overlooked the nation-state and went through a process of fighting discrimination without identifying the discriminator. However, it was the focus on empire that allowed for a clear identification of how gender constructs were instrumental to state politics and the exclusion of women. An emphasis on colonial practices also generated a focus on the body and radically shifted the commission's politics from formal equality to a gender-based equilibrium of rights that emphasized practice rather than law. Through a multidisciplinary approach, Russo looks at the women living under colonial and postcolonial systems as the key actors in defining the politics of women's rights at the UN.

Author: Giusi Russo
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 03/01/2023
Pages: 306
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.99lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.69d
ISBN13: 9781496234438
ISBN10: 149623443X
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | International Relations | General
- Social Science | Women's Studies
- Social Science | Feminism & Feminist Theory

About the Author
Giusi Russo is an assistant professor of history at Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania.