This book situates late 20th century feminisms within a global framework of women's activism. Its chapters demonstrate how issues of heterogeneity, transnationalism, and intersectionality have transformed understandings of historical feminism. The authors adress themes such as such as the rejection of 'hegemonic' feminism by marginalized feminist groups, transnational linkages among women's organizations, transnational flows of ideas and transnational migration.
This book chronicles the influence of second wave feminism on everything from electoral politics to LGBTQ rights. The original descriptions of second wave feminism focused on elite, white voices, obscuring the accomplishments of many activists, as third wave feminists criticized. In this book scholars provide a more complex description of second wave feminism, in which the efforts of women from many races, classes, sexual orientations, and religious traditions, in the fight for equality have had a long-term impact on American politics.