With extensive use of case materials, this volume describes and analyzes the significance of social movements like the struggle for abortion rights and gay rights for the large-scale transformations of key aspects of gender and family. Gender and social movements are also linked in a way that shows how events of the nineteenth century are relevant to understanding the struggles for change today.

The Interplay of Gender and Social Movements
Gender, Family, and Social Change
Social Movements and Feminist Consciousness
Feminism, Antifeminism, and the Conflict over Equal Rights
Abortion and Family Politics
The Battle over Gay and Lesbian Rights
The Contribution of Social Movements

Suzanne Staggenborg received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1985. She taught at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana before joining the faculty at McGill University in Montreal, where she is currently an associate professor of sociology. Her work includes The Pro-Choice Movement: Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict (Oxford University Press, 1991) and a number of articles about abortion politics and social movements