This book examines the role of the Women's International Defense Federation (WIDF) in transnational women’s activism in the context of the Cold War, and in connection to the rights of women from Asia, Africa and Latin America.Combining a global history and postcolonial theory approach, this monograph shines light on an underrepresented organisation and its important role in the Cold War, Twentieth Century women's rights and Soviet history. Questioning whether the organization acted...

This book provides a new perspective through a closer look on “Other”, i.e. ethnic minority women defined by the Soviet documents as natsionalka. Applying decolonial theory and critical race and whiteness studies, the book analyzes archive documents, early Soviet films and mass publications in order to explore how the “emancipation” and “culturalization” of women of “culturally backward nations” was practiced and presented for the mass Soviet audience. Whilst the special focus of the book ...

Forty years have passed since the first UN-organized World Conference on Women in Mexico City in 1975. In that time, women’s rights, and later gender equality, have become firmly established as an important area of global politics and human rights. What shape have these processes taken in different parts of the world? How do global and internationally designed institutions adapt to local cultural, religious, political, and economic contexts? What are the problems and contradictions embedde...

Gendering Postsocialism explores changes in gendered norms and expectations in Eastern Europe and Eurasia after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The dismantlement of state socialism in these regions triggered monumental shifts in their economic landscape, the involvement of their welfare states in social citizenship and, crucially, their established gender norms and relations, all contributing to the formation of the postsocialist citizen.Case studies examine a wide range of i...

This volume explores how different post-Soviet countries have reinterpreted and diverged from the Soviet gender roles and values. It synthesizes results from multiple empirical studies that attend to increasingly conservative features of political governance in the region, particularly the authoritarian regime in Russia. The authors consider diverse enactments of ideologies, policies and practices of gender equality and women’s rights in crucial areas, such as legislative institutions, med...