Description: The history that Jain chronicles reveals both the achievements of committed networks of women in partnership with the UN and the urgent work remaining to bring equality and justice to the world and its women.
Review Quotes:
"This is the 7th of a 14--volume comprehensive history of the United Nations (UN). The book begins with the UN's founding in 1945, when only 4 of the 160 signatories were women, from the Dominican Republic, Brazil, China, and the US. For gender scholars, political scientists, and academics, this is a detailed account of how women used their social capital, power, and networks to measure and highlight women's status around the world. Many familiar concepts and measures of gender inequality are traced to the UN's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a subcommittee established within the UN's first year. Equality, political suffrage, child marriage, widow rights, and all aspects ofwomen's visible and invisible work are a few of the measures and studies stemming from the commission. The book details the four global women's conferences (Mexico, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing). Surely, the impact on women's lives--particularly those of the south--is one of the UN's greatest accomplishments. Summing Up: Recommended. Most levels/librarie"--A. S. Hunter, Idaho State University