Citizenship is the common language for expressing aspirations to democratic and egalitarian ideals of inclusion, participation and civic membership. However, there continues to be a significant gap between formal commitments to gender equality and equal citizenship - in the laws and constitutions of many countries, as well as in international human rights documents - and the reality of women's lives. This volume presents a collection of original works that examine this persisting inequality through the lens of citizenship. Distinguished scholars in law, political science and women's studies investigate the many dimensions of women's equal citizenship, including constitutional citizenship, democratic citizenship, social citizenship, sexual and reproductive citizenship and global citizenship. Gender Equality takes stock of the progress toward - and remaining impediments to - securing equal citizenship for women, develops strategies for pursuing that goal and identifies new questions that will shape further inquiries.

‘This outstanding collection of essays both illuminates and complicates a range of gender justice problems in intimate and public arenas within and across national boundaries. The ‘citizenship' of the title stands for democratic inclusion, and is animated by an aspirational vision of ‘equal citizenship' for women and men. Yet the volume's editors recognize that the citizenship concept is itself fraught and double-edged, and must be deployed self-critically. Gender Equality is comprised of a set of original essays by a range of distinguished scholars working at the intersection of feminist legal and political theory. The volume offers a rigorous overview of many of the political and theoretical conundrums facing advocates of equal justice for women today.'

Linda Bosniak - Rutgers University School of Law

‘This rich cross-national and comparative collection explores and assesses the progress of women toward equal citizenship, identifying multiple dimensions of citizenship and theorizing citizenship in new arenas. Posing complex and provocative questions, Gender Equality will generate conversations between legal scholars and political scientists and will challenge empirical researchers and theorists to consider more fully what equal citizenship requires.'

Carol Nackenoff - Swarthmore College

‘This volume is an exciting collection that will be essential reading for those concerned with gender equality and citizenship across myriad disciplines.'

Leti Volpp - University of California, Berkeley, School of Law

‘A treasure box of insight on equal citizenship, a concept with great constitutional and normative promise for advancing gender equality.'

Jane Mansbridge - Adams Professor, Harvard University

‘Professors Linda McClain and Joanna Grossman have compiled an enlightening collection of articles that address the barriers that remain to full gender equality. Departing from traditional analysis, the collection employs the language of equal citizenship to reflect on society's progress toward achieving equal status for all individuals … By emphasizing the exclusionary and masculine underpinnings of current conceptions of citizenship, Professors McClain and Grossman's collection recognizes a need to regender citizenship in order to eliminate the gender biases that remain present despite contemporary gender-neutral definitions of citizenship.'

Source: Harvard Law Review

‘In sum, this collective volume provides a rich array of theoretical perspectives and empirical analysis, which bring together formal, substantive and discursive dimensions of women's precarious citizenship in a US and international context.'

Source: Canadian Journal of Political Science