Women, a world report.

Published to commemorate the UN-sponsored world conference marking the end of the Decade for Women, this volume is divided into three sections, each with its own perspective and flavor. The first section codifies the massive documentation amassed for the conference into 30,000 readable words. This section provides an overview of women's position in the areas of family, world of work, education, health and sex, and politics. The presentations are direct, easily understood, and supported by current statistics. The second section explores the same topics with an alternative methodology. Ten women of note, representing rich and poor nations, have written personal narratives on the contemporary position of women around the world. These rich cross-cultural narratives include, among others, Germaine Greer on women and politics in Cuba; Angela Davis on women and sex in Egypt; Toril Brekke on women to women in Kenya, and Marilyn French on women and work in India. The final section of the book reviews current statistics on women around the world. Although this text is not so extensive as might be desired it is a real treasure. It is a wonderful document that catches the spirit of the time with integrity and quality. A versatile general resource for the study of women, recommended for all libraries.-M. Triplette, Salem College, N.C.

This was written ``to capture the essence of the position of women at the end of the Decade U.N. Decade for Women and set it down as a benchmark against which the future can be measured.'' Part 1, ``Women: An Analysis'' and Part 3, ``Women: The Facts,'' are based on data culled from governmental statistics and U.N. research. Part 2, ``Woman to Woman,'' consists of ten essays in which women from poorer nations discuss the position of women in wealthier nations and vice versa. The information in this book complements the essays in Women in the World, 1975-1985 , edited by Lynne B. Iglitzin and Ruth Ross (ABC-Clio, 1985. 2d ed.) and Sisterhood Is Global: an international women's movement anthology , edited by Robin Morgan ( LJ 11/15/84). Highly recommended. Frada L. Mozenter, Univ. of North Carolina at Charlotte Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

As the United Nations Decade for Women (1975-85) draws to a close, the easy recourse would have been to pull out the old feminist yardstick and measure the strides women have taken, internationally, toward equality. More realistically, this book takes the opposite tack, measuring the strides yet to be taken. The conclusion must be that while women have come a long way, collectively they have so very much farther to go. The first section is an easily digestible, if not always palatable, presentation of the statistical evidence assembled in the past decade on the position of women throughout the world. We learn, for example, that the number of countries enacting equal pay legislation has increased from 28 in 1978 to 90 in 1983. Still, in the western world, it seems that women perform three hours a week less paid work than do men, but a stunning 17 hours more unpaid, domestic work. Women, who still must do all the domestic work, are obviously deprived of the wage-earning opportunities men have. Such a comprehensive analysis of women within the work force, their place in the family hierarchy, and their political impact makes readily accessible a true picture of the role women are allowed to play in various world cultures. The inspired latter half of the book is a collection of essays by feminists, some well-known, sent to investigate the status of women in cultures other than their own. Germaine Greet, for example, reports from Cuba, where she found women struggling to fulfill extraordinary, and conflicting, demands to embody traditional flower-like feminity, while also performing as diehard revolutionaries. Nigeria's Buchi Emecheta, in the US, found that while women had triumphed in the fight for equal opportunity for education, in the end, cultural conditioning too often resulted in educated women becoming mired in domesticity and dependence in postgraduate life. From Australia, Mexico's Elena Poniatowska sent a telling analysis of the true import for women of the sexual revolution there. Taken together, the essays provide a cross-cultural sampling of societal issues pertaining to women in a form that is enlightening, unquestionably informative and, in an odd way, surprisingly entertaining. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.