This volume examines the role of law as a tool for advancing women's rights and gender equity in local, national, and global contexts. Many feminist scholars note a marked failure of law to achieve goals connected to women's rights and gender equality. Despite its limitations, law provides aspirational norms that can be mobilized to hold institutions accountable and to provide material benefit to those excluded from systems of power. In conversation with each other, the chapters in this volume help to advance understanding of both the limitations and the potential of law as a tool for advancing democratic participation, rights, and justice around issues related to gender and sexuality. Contributors acknowledge, to varying degrees, that law has important symbolism and may be used as a lever to mobilize change. At the same time, some offer cautionary notes about the potential downside risks and unintended consequences of relying upon law in pursuit of women's rights and gender equity. Collectively, the chapters in this volume explore the disjuncture between the promise and expectation of legal reform and the lived experience of those laws by people intended as the beneficiaries of legal change. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Discourse.

Perhaps no other public policy issue has greater potential to affect some of the most significant economic, political, social, and ethical changes of the 21st century than global health. In this book, a scholar/physician team authors a comprehensive introduction to global health issues and emphasizes the potential of public health intervention to improve the longevity and quality of human life across the globe. The authors have lived and worked in Africa as well as in medically underserved areas of the United States, so they write with firsthand experience and authority. Using themes of interconnectedness, globalization, and united concern from citizens, this book encourages readers to consider the role that they might play as engaged citizens in taking on the global public health challenges of the 21st century including everything from AIDs and flu to tobacco, obesity, and threats in conflict zones.

Perhaps no other public policy issue has greater potential to affect some of the most significant economic, political, social, and ethical changes of the 21st century than global health. In this book, a scholar/physician team authors a comprehensive introduction to global health issues and emphasises the potential of public health intervention to improve the longevity and quality of human life across the globe. The authors have lived and worked in Africa as well as in medically underserved areas of the United States, so they write with firsthand experience and authority. Using themes of interconnectedness, globalisation, and united concern from citizens, this book encourages readers to consider the role that they might play as engaged citizens in taking on the global public health challenges of the 21st century including everything from AIDs and flu to tobacco, obesity, and threats in conflict zones.

This volume examines the role of law as a tool for advancing women's rights and gender equity in local, national, and global contexts. Many feminist scholars note a marked failure of law to achieve goals connected to women's rights and gender equality. Despite its limitations, law provides aspirational norms that can be mobilized to hold institutions accountable and to provide material benefit to those excluded from systems of power. In conversation with each other, the chapters in this volume help to advance understanding of both the limitations and the potential of law as a tool for advancing democratic participation, rights, and justice around issues related to gender and sexuality. Contributors acknowledge, to varying degrees, that law has important symbolism and may be used as a lever to mobilize change. At the same time, some offer cautionary notes about the potential downside risks and unintended consequences of relying upon law in pursuit of women's rights and gender equity. Collectively, the chapters in this volume explore the disjuncture between the promise and expectation of legal reform and the lived experience of those laws by people intended as the beneficiaries of legal change. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Discourse.

Women and men migrate across international boundaries at roughly the same rate. Yet most scholarship assumes that international migration results primarily from the labor migration of male workers. When international female migration is acknowledged, the focus is almost exclusively on women in the low-wage labor sector of the global economy.

Gender and Immigration challenges this outlook by examining the diverse and complex ways in which women in a variety of occupational and social categories experience international relocation.

Written by experts and policymakers in the field, the timely essays collected here explore whether international migration provides women with opportunities for liberation from the subordinate gender roles of their countries of origin. Or, do migrant women face both traditional and new forms of subordination and discrimination in their host societies?

Exploring the experiences of a broad range of women, from "unskilled" workers on the U.S.-Mexican border and Filipino mail-order brides to Indian-American motel owners, Asian businesswomen, and Russian immigrants to Israel, Gender and Immigration offers a much-needed corrective to the long-standing invisibility of women in international migration research.

Civil rights rhetoric has been central to the debate over U.S. immigration policy since at least the 1960s. A coalition of interest groups, including churches, ethnic organizations, civil rights groups, and employer associations has played a fundamental role in advancing civil rights norms in the immigration arena. The growing importance of civil rights rhetoric in the debate over U.S. immigration policy, DeLaet asserts, helps to explain the liberalization of U.S. immigration policy in spite of growing evidence that the public opposition to immigration has grown during the same period. In turn, the liberalization of U.S. immigration policy has contributed to rising numbers of both legal and illegal immigrants. Thus, high levels of immigration reflect the basic provisions of current U.S. immigration policy, rather than a loss of governmental control. Many analysts have suggested that the immigration policy reforms passed by Congress in 1996 marked the beginning of a new era of restrictionism. However, as DeLaet illustrates, the new restrictions adopted in 1996 contain many of the same loopholes as previous legislation, indicating the coalition of interest groups supporting immigration still pose a significant obstacle to efforts to restrict immigration.

Civil rights rhetoric has been central to the debate over U.S. immigration policy since at least the 1960s. A coalition of interest groups, including churches, ethnic organizations, civil rights groups, and employer associations has played a fundamental role in advancing civil rights norms in the immigration arena. The growing importance of civil rights rhetoric in the debate over U.S. immigration policy, DeLaet asserts, helps to explain the liberalization of U.S. immigration policy in spite of growing evidence that the public opposition to immigration has grown during the same period. In turn, the liberalization of U.S. immigration policy has contributed to rising numbers of both legal and illegal immigrants. Thus, high levels of immigration reflect the basic provisions of current U.S. immigration policy, rather than a loss of governmental control.

Many analysts have suggested that the immigration policy reforms passed by Congress in 1996 marked the beginning of a new era of restrictionism. However, as DeLaet illustrates, the new restrictions adopted in 1996 contain many of the same loopholes as previous legislation, indicating the coalition of interest groups supporting immigration still pose a significant obstacle to efforts to restrict immigration.

Women and men migrate across international boundaries at roughly the same rate. Yet most scholarship assumes that international migration results primarily from the labor migration of male workers. When international female migration is acknowledged, the focus is almost exclusively on women in the low-wage labor sector of the global economy.

Gender and Immigration challenges this outlook by examining the diverse and complex ways in which women in a variety of occupational and social categories experience international relocation.

Written by experts and policymakers in the field, the timely essays collected here explore whether international migration provides women with opportunities for liberation from the subordinate gender roles of their countries of origin. Or, do migrant women face both traditional and new forms of subordination and discrimination in their host societies?

Exploring the experiences of a broad range of women, from "unskilled" workers on the U.S.-Mexican border and Filipino mail-order brides to Indian-American motel owners, Asian businesswomen, and Russian immigrants to Israel, Gender and Immigration offers a much-needed corrective to the long-standing invisibility of women in international migration research.