The Geopolitics of Feminism: International Women’s Year, the United Nations, and the Globalization of Social Policy

This talk considers the case of the 1975 UN International Women’s Year Conference in Mexico City to discuss the ways that 1970s feminism and the explosion of women’s organizing around the world reoriented global policies around a host of issues ranging from population and food security to labor policies and environmental accords. These debates were refracted through 1970s geopolitics — détente, decolonization, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Sino-Soviet split — but also created vehicles through with feminist movements and women’s organizations shaped international policies and practices.