About the Book
This volume examines the involvement of women and their networks in and with the ILO, how gender has entered into international labour standards have shaped gender, and the challenges of achieving gender equity through transnational and local labour policies. The question of women workers has been on the ILO's agenda since 1919. This volume gathers newest scholarly research on the complex history of the ILO's activities for women workers. "This is a must-read volume for scholars and students interested in women, labor and international/transnational history." -Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, University of California, Irvine, USA "This fascinating collection of essays assesses the ILO's role in securing social justice for women workers around the world and asks how that role might change as the world of work is transformed in the next century."-Celia Donert, University of Liverpool "This exciting collection provides a long-overdue state of the art on gender politics and the ILO. It will no doubt be the work of reference on the topic for years to come." -Elisabeth Prügl, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements
Notes on contributors
Annotated list of organizations and abbreviations/acronyms
Preface
Introduction: A Century of Women’s ILO
Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker and Susan Zimmermann
Part I: The Work of Transnational Networks
1. “The Other ILO Founders”: 1919 and its Legacies
Dorothy Sue Cobble
2. Difficult Inroads, Unexpected Results: The Correspondence Committee on Women’s Work in the 1930s
Françoise Thébaud
3. International Networking in the Interwar Years: Gertrud Hanna, Alice Salomon, and Erna Magnus
Kirsten Scheiwe and Lucia Artner
4. Equality’s Cold War: The ILO and the UN Commission on the Status of Women, 1946–1970s
Eileen Boris
5. The Unobtainable Magic of Numbers: Equal Remuneration, the ILO, and the International Trade Union Movement, 1950s–1980s
Silke Neunsinger
6. Transnational Links and Constraints: Women’s Work, the ILO, and the ICFTU in Africa, 1950s–1980s
Yevette Richards
7. Informal Women Workers Open ILO Doors through Transnational Organizing, 1980s–2010s
Chris Bonner, Pat Horn, and Renana Jhabvala
8. Women’s Representation at the ILO: A Hundred Years of Marginalization
Marieke Louis
Part II. Developing and Negotiating Global Labour Standards
9. Globalizing Gendered Labour Policy: International Labour Standards and the Global South, 1919–1947
Susan Zimmermann
10. Motherhood at the Heart of Labour Regulation: Argentina, 1907–1941
Paula Lucía Aguilar
11. Unexpected Alliances: Italian Women’s Struggles for Equal Pay, 1940s–1960s
Eloisa Betti
12. Organizing Rural Women in Ghana since the 1980s: Trade Union Efforts and ILO Standards
Akua O. Britwum
13. Mothers Working Abroad: Migrant Women Caregivers and the ILO, 1980s–2010s
Sonya Michel
14. When Maternity is Paid Work: Commercial Gestational Surrogacy at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century
Mahua Sarkar
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Eileen Boris, Ph.D. (Brown University, 1981) holds the Hull Chair of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The author or editor of twelve volumes, she writes on home labours and race, gender, and class in social politics.
Dorothea Hoehtker , Ph.D. (EHESS, Paris, 2003), is a historian and Senior Researcher at the ILO. She is co-editor, with Sandrine Kott, of A la rencontre de l’Europe au travail. Récits de voyages d’Albert Thomas (1920–1932) (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne/ILO, 2015).
Susan Zimmermann, Ph.D. (Vienna University, 1993) is University Professor at Central European University. She has written on international labour and welfare policy, internationalism and global inequality, the history of women’s movements and women in mixed organizations.
Review :
Endorsements:
“This fascinating collection of essays assesses the ILO’s role in securing social justice for women workers around the world over the past hundred years, and asks how that role might change as the world of work is itself transformed in the next century. Essential reading for scholars and students interested in the history of labour, feminist activism, social rights and international organizations.”
- Celia Donert, University of Liverpool
“This is an exciting collection that provides a long-overdue state of the art on gender politics and the ILO. It brings to life a feminist and historical perspective—broadening the consideration of women at the ILO to an exploration of gender politics, intersectionally weaving race, class, and coloniality into such politics, exploring the power of the ILO’s gender expertise to define new realities, recognizing the institutional conflicts between the ILO and the UN regarding gender politics during the Cold War, valorizing the power of women’s and feminist networks, bringing into view the translations of ILO ideas into multiple contexts around the world, and showing how the very meaning of work needs re-evaluation when women’s experiences are taken seriously. In addition to doing all this, the collection offers rich empirical materials based on original research. It will no doubt be the work of reference on the topic for years to come.”
– Elisabeth Prügl, Professor of International Relations, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
“Women’s ILO is a groundbreaking anthology that explores how women’s transnational political networks have shaped the International Labour Organization and how the ILO has sought to create standards for work conditions for women throughout the 20th century. In anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the ILO, founded in 1919, this volume brings together established as well as emerging scholars from across the globe to explore issues related to women, labor, and international regulation. The essays, written by historians and social scientists, have a broad geographical as well as chronological reach. The authors explore issues related to gender, work, and economic justice in the global South and North. They also trace the developments of the ILO, women’s networks, and gendered regulations across the interwar years, World War II and the Cold War, and the rise and expansion of neoliberalism and globalization. This is a must-read volume for scholars and students interested in women, labor, and international/transnational history.”
– Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Department of Asian American Studies, University of California, Irvine
