Women's agency across cultures: Conceptualizing strengths and boundaries

The authors in this special issue discuss how women's voices are excluded, silenced and marginalized in settings and processes such as war, displacement, democratization, labor market, judicial system, state bureaucracy, nonprofit organizations and national debates on citizenship. They also discover how women found their voices, channeled them, modified them, and gained a measure of empowerment. They examine women's agency across cultures by focusing on countries as diverse as Turkey, Portugal, Lebanon, Mexico and the US. Each article is concerned with particular transformations in social, economic and political systems that in turn shape women's social, economic and political ability or lack thereof to make their voices heard. All articles are engaged with identifying structural problems that limit women's personal, social and political capacity to maneuver for their own interests. Then again, each piece analyzes a particular form of women's agency or efforts to change their circumstances according to their interests and concerns. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.