Women Politics and Empowerment

"Women and the Politics of Empowerment is filled with pictures of women whose lives the masculinist ideology of our disciplines has said are not worthy of our interest. Bookman, Morgen, and their colleagues awaken all kinds of ideas about where to go from here." --Women & Politics "Drawing together an excellent compilation of case studies of community and workplace organizing, Bookman and Morgen redefine the political arena and process. They focus on the statuses of working-class and low-income women from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, thereby giving attention to women who have been largely ignored as actors in the political arena... These rich and varied case materials are useful for the scholar-researcher, the activist, and for the teacher in women's studies, social work, public policy, education, and public health." --Contemporary Sociology "Don't let the title...scare you... The book is devoted to bridging the gap between theory and practice, between feminism and working-class women. And it succeeds, through fourteen widely disparate, yet complementary essays about working-class women, Black, Latina and white, struggling on the job and in their communities for social change." --New Directions for Women

• Rethinking Women and Politics: An Introductory Essay Sandra Morgen and Ann Bookman Part I: Expanding and Redefining the Political Terrain 1. "Making Your Job Good Yourself": Domestic Service and the Construction of Personal Dignity Bonnie Thornton Dill 2. Building in Many Places: Multiple Commitments and Ideologies in Black Women's Community Work Cheryl Townsend Gilkes 3. Gender and Grassroots Leadership Karen Brodkin Sacks Part II: Gender and the Shaping of Women's Political Consciousness 4. "It's the Whole Power of the City Against Us!": The Development of Political Consciousness in a Women's Health Care Coalition Sandra Morgen 5. Women Workers and Collective Action: A Case Study from the Insurance Industry Cynthia B. Costello 6. The Edison School Struggle: The Reshaping of Working-Class Education and Women's Consciousness Wendy Luttrell Part III: Reverberations among the Spheres: Family, Workplace, and Community Networks 7. Unionization in an Electronics Factory: The Interplay of Gender, Ethnicity, and Class Ann Bookman 8. Urban Politics in the Higher Education of Black Women: A Case Study Andree Nicola-McLaughlin and Zala Chandler 9. The Politics of Race and Gender: Organizing Chicana Cannery Workers in Northern California Patricia Zavella Part IV: Conditions, Catalysts, and Constraints: Political Economy and Grassroots Activism 10. Women Unions, and "Participative Management": Organizing in the Sunbelt Louise Lamphere and Guillermo J. Grenier 11. Working-Class Women, Social Protest, and Changing Ideologies Ida Susser 12. Vending on the Streets: City Policy, Gentrification, and Public Patriarchy Roberta M. Spalter-Roth Part V: Grassroots Organizing and Political Theory: Toward A Synthesis 13. Communities, Resistance, and Women's Activism: Some Implications for a Democratic Polity Martha A. Ackelsberg 14. "Carry It On": Continuing the Discussion and the Struggle Ann Bookman and Sandra Morgen The Contributors