Young Women and Leadership
Through a range of case studies in Asia and the Pacific, this edited collection highlights the extent of the unique ways in which young women lead to create change in their own lives and their communities, as well as in the structures, cultures, and institutions in which they live and work.
This volume challenges and reshapes the boundaries and relationships of power that animate traditional attitudes to leadership by exploring the often-overlooked role of women as leaders and drivers of social change. The text draws on a number of complex case studies in Asia and the Pacific in order to demonstrate how young women around the world have developed organised approaches to leadership that are often collective, collaborative, and transformative. However, as the authors reveal, they also deviate from traditional forms of leadership that have dominated the literature and public understanding.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the theory and/or practice of leadership. More broadly, it will also be useful for students and scholars of political science, international studies, peace and conflict studies, international and community development, leadership studies, cultural studies, youth studies, and gender studies.
Katrina Lee-Koo is Associate Professor of International Relations at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She is the co-author of Children and Global Conflict (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Ethics and Global Security (Routledge, 2014).
Lesley Pruitt is Senior Lecturer in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and author of Youth Peacebuilding: Music, Gender, and Change (State University of New York Press, 2013) and The Women in Blue Helmets: Gender, Policing & the UNs First All-Female Peacekeeping Unit (University of California Press, 2016).
Routledge Studies in Gender and Global Politics
Series Editor: Laura J. Shepherd, UNSWAustralia
This series aims to publish books that work with, and through, feminist insights on global politics, and illuminate the ways in which gender functions not just as a marker of identity but also as a constitutive logic in global political practices. The series welcomes scholarship on any aspect of global political practices, broadly conceived, that pays attention to the ways in which gender is central to, (re)produced in, and is productive of, such practices.
There is growing recognition both within the academy and in global political institutions that gender matters in and to the practices of global politics. From the governance of peace and security, to the provision of funds for development initiatives, via transnational advocacy networks linked through strategic engagement with new forms of media, these processes have a gendered dimension that is made visible through empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated feminist work.
Gender, Emancipation, and Political Violence
Rethinking the Legacy of 1968
Edited by Sarah Colvin and Katharina Karcher
Gendering Peace
UN Peacebuilding in Timor-Leste
Sarah Smith
Female Combatants After Armed Struggle
Lost in Transition?
Niall Gilmartin
The Globalization of Gender
Knowledge, Mobilizations, Frameworks of Action
Edited by Ioana Crstocea, Delphine Lacombe and Elisabeth Marteu
Young Women and Leadership
Edited by Katrina Lee-Koo and Lesley Pruitt
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2020 selection and editorial matter, Katrina Lee-Koo and Lesley Pruitt; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Katrina Lee-Koo and Lesley Pruitt to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-20435-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-26148-0 (ebk)
This book is dedicated in loving memory to our friend and colleague Juli Dugdale, a tireless advocate of young women everywhere.
This collection is born out of a collaborative research project undertaken by the editors with the World YWCA (Geneva) and funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Under the direction of Juli Dugdale, the World YWCA asked us to develop an independent scholarly account of what young womens leadership looks like in Asia and the Pacific. They further sought an analysis of the barriers and opportunities to advance young womens leadership. Of course, Juli already knew the answers. But she identified the gap in both academic and sector analysis of young women as a specific group of leaders, and she understood the value of developing a strong evidence-base that articulates the nature and impact of young womens leadership. And so, she set us free to do this.
We would like to thank Juli both for her guidance and for giving us the independence to do this research. We learned much about leadership from watching and working with Juli. She was a woman of extraordinary strength, power, and courage, but also of great humility and grace. Juli died just prior to this manuscripts submission, and as tributes flow in describing how she set (and often re-set) young women on their leadership paths, we were reminded of the difference we can all make as we too seek to live feminist lives.
This research is the product of the labour and generosity of many, particularly during the fieldwork phases. First and foremost, we would like to thank the young women from across Asia and the Pacific who lent their time, stories, and expertise to this project as research participants, peer researchers, research facilitators, and research validators. We would also like to thank the organisations and their staff who have supported this project, including the World YWCA, the national offices of the YWCA across the region, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the International Womens Development Agency (Melbourne), and our own Monash GPS (Gender, Peace, and Security) and School of Social Sciences at Monash University. We would particularly like to thank Elizabeth Nash and Naomi Avah Woyengu who kindly provided feedback on chapters in this collection.
Finally, closer to home, many thanks are due to our partners and children for the support and inspiration they provide daily in working toward a better world for everyone, now and in the future.
