This book explains when and why governments around the world take action to advance - or undermine - women's rights.

Mala Htun is Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. She is the author of Inclusion without Representation in Latin America (Cambridge, 2016) and Sex and the State (Cambridge, 2003). She has been named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, held the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship in Japan, and was a fellow at the Kellogg Institute of the University of Notre Dame and the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Norwegian Research Council.

1. Introduction: states and gender justice; 2. Feminist mobilization and status politics: combatting violence against women; 3. Governing women's legal status at work; 4. Doctrinal politics: religious power, the state, and family law; 5. Class politics: family leave and child care policy; 6. Reproductive rights: class, status, and doctrinal politics; 7. The multiple logics of gender justice; 8. Conclusion.