Women on the Right

Politics and Social Action in Comparative and Transnational Perspective, 1870s-1990s

Clarisse Berthezène, Laura Lee Downs, Julie V. Gottlieb

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781350353114
• Edition: 0
• Subtopic: Social History

Women on the Right explores the complex relationships between conservative and right-wing politics, social action, and women actors from the late 19th to the late 20th century. Edited by Clarisse Berthezène, Laura Lee Downs, and Julie V. Gottlieb, each essay examines the spectrum of women's engagement with right-wing politics, from centrist and 'progressive conservatism' groups, to authoritarianism and fascism. This book uses local and national case studies to explore a wide range of women's social and political mobilizations. Using a bottom-up perspective, it stays focused on the ideas, ambitions, and practices of the actors themselves. Key points of comparison include: the very different roles played by religious institutions and associations, the broader regional and national contexts, and the dynamics that favour - or not - the eventual construction of welfare states. Women on the Right consistently adopts a multinational and multidimensional approach, by bringing together a team of expert contributors to engage in a discussion of the comparative and transnational features of right-wing women's political thought and practice. The result is a unique contribution to the historical understanding of women's participation in - and ideas about - conservative activism.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction Clarisse Berthezène, Laura Lee Downs and Julie V. Gottlieb
• 1 The limits of right-wing women’s rights activism: The case of Hungary Judith Szapor
• 2 Social action on the (far) right: Gender, class and ‘internal welfare’ in the Romanian Legionary Movement Anca Diana Axinia
• 3 Right-wing women and social action: The aristocratic women of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Donne Italiane during the interwar years Anne Cova
• 4 ‘Our true purpose is patriotic propaganda in la Slavia’: The association ‘Assistenza all’Italia Redenta’ and the ‘unpolitical politics’ of social assistance, 1919–25 Laura Lee Downs
• 5 ‘Joan of Arc was nationalist and feminist without a label’: Women’s engagement in the Action Française (1900–30s) Camille Cleret
• 6 British nationalist feminism in the sphere of international relations in the interwar period Julie V. Gottlieb
• 7 Nurses, social action and female identity during the Spanish Civil War and early Franco dictatorship (1937–47) Ángela Cenarro
• 8 An example of a ‘patriarchal bargain’?: The trajectory of Samiha Ayverdi between gender, Islam and Cold War Turkey Zeynep Bursa-Millet
• 9 The Catholic women’s movement in Austria Irene Bandhauer-Schöffmann
• 10 Catholic women and social action in Spanish social Catholicism, 1898–1931 Inmaculada Blasco Herranz
• 11 Dear life protectors! Women in right-wing environmentalism in the Federal Republic of Germany Lauren K. Stokes
• 12 Between conservative ideology and the New Women’s Movement: Conservative women in 1970s Swedish politics Helena Tolvhed
• Afterword: Women’s history comes of age? Krista Cowman
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• Imprint