Reaction and Resistance

This is an excellent collection that gets to the heart of a number of very important policy debates in Canada from a feminist legal standpoint. The two major strands that weave through all of the papers - backlash and the effects of neoliberalism - are very important both theoretically and from an activist perspective. Greater understanding of how these larger social processes work will provide significant strength to scholarly and activist communities. -- Audrey Kobayashi, Queen's Research Chair, Department of Geography, Queen's University

The image of "backlash" is pervasive in contemporary debates about the impact of second-wave feminism on law and policy, but systematic research on the subject is lacking. This book addresses that gap and analyzes late 20th-century responses to feminism, and asks: to what extent does the concept of backlash explain reactions to feminism over time?

The image of “backlash” is pervasive in contemporary debates about the impact of second-wave feminism on law and policy. But does it really explain the resistance to feminist initiatives for social change in contemporary culture?

In this timely volume, contributors from various disciplines analyze reaction and resistance to feminism in several areas of law and policy – child custody, child poverty, sexual harassment, and sexual assault – and in a number of institutional sites, such as courts, legislatures, families, the mainstream media, and the academy. Collectively, their studies paint a more complicated, often contradictory, picture of feminism, law, and social change than the popular image of backlash suggests.

Reaction and Resistance offers feminists and other activists empirically grounded knowledge that can be used to develop legal and political strategies for change.