This book examines the role of the Women’s International Defense Federation (WIDF) in transnational women\u2019s activism in the context of the Cold War, and in connection to the rights of women from Asia, Africa and Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Combining a global history and postcolonial theory approach, this monograph shines light on an underrepresented organisation and its important role in the Cold War, Twentieth Century women’s rights and Soviet history. Questioning whether the organization acted for women\u2019s causes or whether it was merely a Cold War political instrument, the book analyzes and problematizes the place that the WIDF had in the politics of the Soviet Union, examining the ideology and politics of the WIDF and state socialist propaganda regarding women’s equality and rights. Using Soviet archival documents of the organizations, the book offers a new perspective on the complexities of the development of global women\u2019s rights movement divided by the Cold War confrontations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is an important study suitable for students and researchers in Women’s and Gender History, Eastern European History and Gender Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter 1. A Forgotten Women\u2019s Organization? The WIDF, in Between Women\u2019s History and Cold War Studies<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter 2. The WIDF, the Soviet State, and Cold War Battles<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter 3. Protecting Peace, Mothers, and Children – WIDF\u2019s Ideology and Activities in its First Decades<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter 4. Anti-Colonialism, Anti-Racism and Social Rights \u2013 the WIDF Defends Women in the Global South<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter 5. The State Socialist Model of Women\u2019s Emancipation as an Example to Follow for the “Whole World”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter 6. Women from Asia, Africa and Latin America Make Themselves Visible in the WIDF<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter 7. Activists from the Global South and the WIDF \u2013 A Biographical Perspective<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter 8. The WIDF on the Eve of IWY and During the UN Decade for Women<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter 9. The WIDF and the End of the Three Worlds: Concluding Remarks<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yulia Gradskova<\/strong> is Associate Professor in History and works at the Department of History, Stockholm University, Sweden. Her research interests include Soviet and post-Soviet social and gender history, decolonial perspective on Soviet politics on emancipation of \u201cwoman of the East\u201d and gender equality. Gradskova is the author of Soviet Politics of Emancipation of Ethnic Minority Women. Natsionalka (Springer, 2018) and co-editor of several books, including Gendering Postsocialism. Old Legacies and New Hierarchies (Routledge 2018, with Ildiko Asztalos Morell); Gender Equality on a Grand Tour. Politics and Institutions \u2013 the Nordic Council,\u00a0 Sweden, Lithuania and Russia (Brill, 2017 \u2013 with E. Blomberg, Y. Waldemarson and A. Zvinkliene).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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