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Theorizing Feminist Policy (Gender and Politics)

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Amy Mazur contributes the first feminist perspective on the policy formation process, a field dominated by traditional male theorists who take gender for granted. Political science is changing as new gender, ethnic, and other social groups are being accounted for in theories that never considered the human factor. This departure from traditional political science adds to our understanding of why governments do what they do and how that affects the citizens it governs. Mazur creates a framework for evaluating how governments have progressed with women's concerns, since the second wave feminist movement made these concerns mainstream. This book is mainly academic, serving political science and women's studies. As a grad student in this field, Mazur's book was enormously helpful to me. It would be helpful for undergrads and non-academic policy wonks as well, because she only spends the first couple of chapters laying out the theory, and the rest of the book looking at practical examples in different sectors of women's issues (reproductive rights, employment law, political representation,etc.) The caveat is that this theory has only been applied and created with western, developed countries in mind. Whether this theory can be applied to lesser developed countries and the Global South still needs to be examined. But its a start in the right direction, and political science definitely needs more contributions from female theorists, so it will be interesting to see how influential this book will be.