Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
October 1996
Abstract
Any observer of the recent politics and economics of Western democratic states will be familiar with the starting point of this collection: that there has been a significant shift in governing practices related to global economic restructuring, informed by a "neo-liberal consensus" that favors shrinking government and deregulating economies. This book tackles the implications of this trend in Canada, but with the specific aim of demonstrating the simultaneous "gender erosion and intensification" integral to restructuring. Isabella Bakker has assembled some of Canada's finest feminist scholars to explore the often contradictory effects of current political-economic strategies on the Canadian (and global) gender order and, as a result, provides a significant challenge to the assumptions underlying the "neoliberal" consensus. Bakker's excellent introduction sets out the epistemological presuppositions of a focus on gender as a category of analysis, offers an overview of key shifts in Canada's policy environment, and effectively contextualizes and previews the specific issues to be explored by the contributors to the collection.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Research 6:2 (Fall 1996). Copyright © 1996 The Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Used by permission. http://www.unl.edu/plains/publications/GPR/gpr.shtml