The Women's Movement Inside and Outside the State

by Lee Ann Banaszak

Overview

The Women’s Movement Inside and Outside the State argues that the mobilization and success of the U.S. women’s movement cannot be fully understood without recognizing the presence of feminist activist networks inside the federal government. Utilizing in-depth interviews and historical sources, Lee Ann Banaszak’s research documents the significant contributions that these insider activists made to the creation of feminist organizations and the vital roles that they played in the development and implementation of policies in many areas, including education, foreign policy, and women’s health. Banaszak also finds that working inside government did not always co-opt or deradicalize these activists. Banaszak’s research causes us to rethink our current understanding of many social movement concepts and processes, including political opportunities, movement institutionalization, and confrontational tactics, and it alters our conception of the interests and character of the American state.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521132862
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/28/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Lee Ann Banaszak is currently associate professor of political science and women's studies at the Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of Why Movements Succeed or Fail: Opportunity, Culture and the Struggle for Woman Suffrage (1996) and the editor of Women's Movements Facing the Reconfigured State (Cambridge, 2003, with Karen Beckwith and Dieter Rucht) and The U.S. Women's Movement in Global Perspective (2005). Her articles have appeared in journals including the American Political Science Review, Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Politics & Gender, and Electoral Studies.

Table of Contents

1. Blurring the conceptual boundaries between the women's movement and the state; 2. Moving feminist activists inside the state: the context of the second wave; 3. Who are movement insiders?; 4. Mobilizing and organizing the second wave; 5. Choosing tactics inside and outside the state; 6. How insider feminists changed policy; 7. Changing with the times - how presidential administrations affect feminist activists inside the state; 8. What insider feminists tell us about women's movements, social movements and the state; Appendix.

Editorial Reviews

At last, a book that focuses on federal government employees who were active in the feminist movement during the 1960s and 1970s. Lee Ann Banaszak has uncovered the work of these generally unpublicized activists and written a comprehensive review and analysis of their efforts to improve the lives and opportunities of women. Any study of the feministmovement Second Wave is incomplete without reading this book.”
-Mary Eastwood, former Justice Department lawyer

“The story of the historic role federal employees played in bringing about the legal revolution in women’s rights in this country has never been told before. Lee Ann Banaszak tells it now in her book, The Women’s Movement Inside and Outside the State. I hope it will be read widely in the U.S. and throughout the world. It is an object lesson in making a legal revolution.”
-Sonia Pressman Fuentes, Co-founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW)

“‘Inside’ and ‘Outside’ are often-invoked concepts in they study of social movements and the state. Banaszak explores this distinction both theoretically and empirically with exceptional care and eloquence. The Women’s Movement Inside and Outside the State makes an absolutely major advance in the study of feminism in the United States and in the discussion of the relationship between movement and state.”
-Mary Fainsod Katzenstein, author of Faithful and Fearless; Moving Feminist Protest inside the Church and Military

“In The Women’s Movement Inside and Outside the State, Lee Ann Banaszak makes an outstanding contribution to scholarship on American political development, women’s history and state theory. In an intellectual tour de force based on exhaustive research Banaszak provides a ground breaking study of how American women have encountered and worked in the American state to advance feminist aims, and why such efforts succeed or fail. She shows how feminist activists in federal agencies from the Kennedy to the Clinton administration used their high level positions and educational training to shape policy in positive ways for women. Among the book’s many achievements are its dazzling contribution to the political sociology of the American state and its highly original account of how the feminist movement and state overlap in complicated ways to reflect the distinct boundaries between society and state in the United States. Superbly organized and clearly written Banazsak’s book will be essential reading for scholars of American politics and feminism.”
-Desmond King, University of Oxford

“This book fills an important gap in women’s movement history by concentrating on the powerful — though often hidden — leadership of courageous and committed women in the federal government from the 1960s until today. Their lone voices brought feminist perspectives to their agencies and brought policy expertise to their movement sisters. Lee Ann Banaszak’s careful analysis demonstrates how their ‘inside/outside’ strategy brought feminists together to create the changes in law and policy that are the hallmark of our movement’s early success. For many of us, our tenure ‘inside’ the federal government prefigured our roles on the ‘outside’ as advocates and activists, another untold story.”
-Leslie R. Wolfe, Center for Women Policy Studies

“A landmark study, The Women‘s Movement Inside and Outside the State will redirect the study of social movements’ encounter with the state.”
-Mayer Zald, University of Michigan

"Anyone interested in how to make change from within would do well to read this book."
-Jo Freeman, www.seniorwomen.com

From the Publisher