Repository | Book | Chapter

We are very aware of the inequalities between men and women. Men own most wealth, most institutions are run by men. Women are given less respect and their skills are less recognised than those of men. Even where women have made inroads into education and professional employment, many barriers remain (Walby, 1997; Broderick, 2010). But in the twentieth century struggles by women, especially in rich countries in the Global North, have led to reforms and improvements such as the right to vote, the right to own property and services such as refuges for victims of domestic violence, women's health centres, equal employment programmes and educational initiatives. Women are no longer seen as victims, but as agents in their own right (Walby, 1997; Wollack, 2010). As agents they have a gender identity "as a lived set of embodied potentialities, rather than as an externally imposed set of constraining norms' (McNay, 2000: 31).

DOI: 10.1057/9781137023001_17

Full citation: