For over half a century, the countless organizations and initiatives that comprise the Women’s Liberation movement have helped to reshape many aspects of Western societies, from public institutions and cultural production to body politics and subsequent activist movements. This collection represents the first systematic investigation of WLM’s cumulative impacts and achievements within the West. Here, specialists on movements in Europe systematically investigate outcomes in different countries in the light of a reflective social movement theory, comparing them both implicitly and explicitly to developments in other parts of the world.

Kristina Schulz, PhD, is Professor for Contemporary History at the University of Neuchâtel. She is a specialist of Western feminist history in comparative perspective and is the author of a book on the French and German WLM: ‘Der lange Atem der Provokation.’ Die Frauenbewegung in der Bundesrepublik und in Frankreich (1968-1976). Together with Leena Schmitter and Sarah Kiani she published a source and archive guide about the Swiss Women’s Liberation Movement in 2014. With Magda Kaspar she created an audio archive and interactive website about the feminist movement in Switzerland from the 1970s to the present (Frauenbewegung 2.0).

“This book is rich in content and thoroughly researched. Several chapters bring relatively un-known movement dynamics to an English-speaking audience for the first time. These contributions provide important empirical evidence of what the diversity of the many Western European Women’s Liberation Movements actually stand for, what they do, and how they develop.” · Susanne Zwingel, Florida International University

“Both exciting and very well-written, this book offers original empirical work on a range of core issues related to the Women’s Liberation Movements. It is based on multiple methods of case studies, and brings forward refreshing empirical material and methodological reflections. There are so many myths about feminism and WLM that claims and descriptions based on solid research, such as those offered by this collection, are essential.” · Beatrice Halsaa, University of Oslo