Gender and Institutions: Welfare, Work and Citizenship

This important interdisciplinary 1999 volume explores what might constitute a feminist approach to institutional design and reshaping. What is the scope, it asks, in contemporary Australian society, for ensuring that institutions acknowledge gender difference and deliver more equitable outcomes? This feminist perspective on institutional design shows how gendered regulatory norms underpin and intersect with all other institutional settings. The leading team of writers includes Deborah Mitchell, Bettina Cass, Chilla Bulbeck, Carol Bacchi and Joan Eveline. Topics discussed include: institutions, embodiment and sexual difference; the welfare state; housing policy; household work; republicanism and citizenship; gender-based discrimination. This book makes a major contribution to debates about the reshaping of our institutions as we move towards the twenty-first century.