Readings on Women and the State

Date:         Tue, 22 Mar 1994 09:07:14 -0600
Subject:      Suggested Readings on Women and the State (x Socpol-L)

Moderator's Note (MLK): Below are several posts from Socpol-l that discuss readings on women and the state that I thought might be of interest to H-Pol subscribers.

1.
From: "V. Tyyska" <vtyyska%EPAS.UTORONTO.CA@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu>

I would like to add my five cents to the discussion of gender and the state by recommending some books. But first, to let you know that my recommendation is based on a Ph.D. thesis, completed in April, 1993, entitled "The women's movement and the welfare state: Child care policy in Canada and Finland, 1960-1990". If any of you are interested in me sending an abstract of the thesis through this e-mail network, let me know. Basically, as the name says, it deals with the effectiveness of the women's movement (defined as women in political parties, labour unions and the independent women's movement) on the policy process, taken int oconsideration the different state and government systems, political/ideological traditions and the policy process itself. Anyone interested or doing similar work out there?

Anyhow, here are my recommendations:

Jennifer Dale and PeggyFoster, 1986. Feminists and state welfare. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Janet Finch and Dulcie Groves, 1983. A labour of love. London: Routledge. Amy Gutmann, ed. 1988. Democracy and the welfare stte. Princeton U. Press. Helga Hernes, 1987. Welfare state and woman power. London: Hutchinson. H. Holter, ed., 1984. Patriarchy and welfare society. Oslo: Norwegian University Press.
Jane Lewis, ed., 1983. Women's welfare, women's rights. London: Groom Helm
Gillian Pascall, 1986. Social policy. A feminist analysis. London: Tavistock C. Pateman, 1988. The sexual contract. Cambridge: Polity Press. Sylvia Walby, 1990. Theorizing patriarchy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Elizabeth Wilson, 1977. Women and the welfare state. London: Tavistock.

If any of you are interested in sources specific to the Nordic experience, contact me at my personal e-mail address (vtyyska@epas.utoronto.ca), and I will be glad to send you a full bibliography in snail-mail.

Oh, by the way, Joya Misra -- I made use of the critique of the Esping-Andersen types of approaches in my thesis, so if you want to talk about it, get in touch.

AND -- thank you for this network, you wonderful people at SOCPOL.

Vappu Tyyska
University of Toronto

2.
From: "michel sonya a." <herfmich%UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu>

To Joya Misra:

Nice to hear your enthusiasm! By all means, have a look at Susan Pedersen's new book, FAMILY, DEPENDENCE, AND THE ORIGINS OF THE WELFARER STATE: BRITAIN AND FRANCE, 1914-1945. Also, you will find the first issue of SOCIAL POLITICS very helpful, since it deals with the theme "Dependency and Independence." It includes a theoretical overview essay by Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon, and then essays dealing with the specific cases of Italy, Holland, Germany, and Australia. (By the way, Pedersen's book is published by Cambridge, 1993).

Good luck!

Sonya Michel
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

3.
From: Tapio Rissanen <sstari%UTA.FI@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu>

Hi Joya Misra and others,
I'm a grad student of social policy and I think this list has long been needed. Thanks to the creators for it.

You told us that you're using Esping-Andersen's approach in your dissertation. I wonder if you have read Ilona Ostner's writings on the worlds of welfare capitalism or - states. She has added there a fourth world, Latin rim. From a German standing-point she is also more critical to the Nordic model than Esping-Andersen. See for example Leibfried & Ostner: 'The Particularism of West German Welfare Capitalism. The Case of Women's Social Security' in Adler & Bell & Sinfield (eds.) 'The Sociology of Social Security' 1991. Langan & Ostner: 'Gender and Welfare. Towards a Comparative Framework' in Room (ed.) 'Towards a European Welfare State?' 1991.

I am doing my master's thesis on the normalisation of small children's mother's labour force by child care policy and its meaning in the formation of the Finnish waged work society. In my study I examine empirically among other things the consequencies of 'child home care subsidy'. The subsidy can be thought to be a part of child care policy, but also a part of family allowance policy. It is -or was before present economical depression- in its extend a unique system supporting women's possibilities to stay at home several years without risking her job and without a deep drop of income. Vappu Tyyska has written about the child home care legislation in her dissertation.

Have a sunny spring, folks!

Tapio Rissanen
sstari@UTA.FI
University of Tampere
Finland

4.
From: Yee-Tak Diana Khor <khor%LELAND.STANFORD.EDU@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu>

Within sociology, theorists/researchers working within the "institutionalist" paradigm have done a number of studies relating the expansion of the state to the incorporation of women into education and occupations. However, as I see it, they are primarily interested in the expansion of the state and look at women as one "peripheral group" that was hitherto excluded from the polity. They are therefore, in my opinion, limited in important ways for someone interested in gender and the state. In any event, you might want to check that out yourself (references are listed below). Separately, I have found certain feminist scholarship on gender and the state interesting and inspiring (see below for some examples). Hope this is helpful (and I apologise for the incompleteness of some of the references - but you should be able to locat them!).

F. Ramirez. 1980. "World political economy and female participation in higher

education". (ASA paper - see if you can get a hold of it). F. Ramirez and J. Weiss. 1979. "The political incorporation of women", in

        National Development and the World System, edited by John Meyer and
        Mike Hannan.
J. Weiss, F. Ramirez and Tracy.  1976.  "Female participation in the occupa-
        tional system" Social Problems, 28 (5): 593-608.
Charlton, Everett, Staudt (ed) 1989. WOMEN, THE STATE and DEVELOPMENT.
        (see esp. Charlton's piece, Bourque's piece)

H. M. Hernes. 1987. Welfare State and Woman Power: Essays in State Feminism. A.S. Sassoon (ed) 1987. WOMEN AND THE STATE.

Diana Khor
Sociology, Stanford
(khor@leland.stanford.edu)

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