Women Across Continents - Lena

The welfare state has had a substantial impact on the lives and welfare of women, and it has become increasingly apparent that not all of the intervention has been beneficial. In recent years, the question of how social policy has responded to the needs and interests of women has been addressed by a number of feminist writers. Lena Dominelli takes this a stage further with "Women Across Continents", a comparative feminist analysis of the impact of social policy on women across capitalist, socialist and social democratic countries.;The book looks at income maintenance, family and health policies in the capitalist market economies of Britain, Canada and the USA, and the "socialist" planned economies of the USSR and China and the social democratic mixed economy of Sweden. It recognizes that economic exigencies have played a major role in shaping social policy, but also that these have emphasized above all men's traditional roles as breadwinners. Dominelli looks to extend the analysis by placing ideology, the power contained within personal relationships and women's unpaid work in the home into the theoretical arena. Emphasis is placed on the importance of moving towards a participatory welfare state which can overcome the traditional divisions between economic and social policy.