This book documents the emergence of transnational feminist activism within trade unions, tracing the challenges and contradictions faced by feminists attempting to use the labor movement to advance women's rights and material conditions on a global scale. In doing so, the authors offer a timely and detailed exploration of the ways in which, working as insiders, feminist union activists are transforming the male-dominated sexual politics of labor movements and mobilizing women workers to tackle the gendered impacts of globalization.

Building on their extensive involvement with, and previous research on, a range of labor organizations in the United States, Canada, and Australia, Franzway and Fonow have gathered new research specifically for this book—through interviews, participant observation, and discursive analysis—and present their findings in eight thematic chapters. Each chapter explores, in an accessible way, key issues and strategic questions about the political spaces and alliances through which union activists advocate for the labor rights of women in today's global economy.

While this book makes numerous contributions to the theory and practice of feminist politics, two themes stand out as particularly important. First, Making Feminist Politics provides a careful study of the synergies and tensions between the labor and feminist political agendas, assessing how far and in what ways the labor rights of women in the global economy can be achieved through a broadening of organized labor's political agenda. The authors contend that in recent decades, union feminists have successfully prompted labor unions to go beyond narrow struggles over contractual details and to adopt a broader political agenda centered on working families. Although the centralization of “the family” has been progressive insofar as it politicizes an institution that figures centrally in women's lives, labor, and identities, as the authors argue in Chapter 3, the ways in which many labor unions are mobilizing the institution run the risk of reinforcing regressive sexual politics and of perpetuating hetero-normative and racialized exclusions. Further, they can carry hidden costs for women, who come to be seen only in relation to the family rather than as workers in their own right. The authors document similar tensions in the actual making of feminist politics within the trade union movement in Chapter 2, where, for instance, they depict the pressure that union feminists encounter to weaken explicitly feminist demands or agendas in the hope of making strategic gains. The authors' nuanced analysis elucidates the complexity of structures of power within and surrounding labor unions and, while positioning union feminism as an important bridge between the labor movement and women's movements, highlights some of the limitations involved in this type of activism.

A second important contribution is the book's ability to connect feminists' contestations of sexual politics in daily life to their struggles to address the oppressive and gendered consequences of global capital. Contending that the labor of making feminist politics is an ongoing, empowering activity in and of itself, the authors argue that the spaces of activism—where women gather to converse and debate—matter as much as do the political agendas they ultimately develop. After all, they contend, opportunities to engage in political activism depend in part on the gendered practices of everyday life. Conceptualizing transnational union activism as a site of sexual politics, as well as a vehicle for transforming sexual politics, allows the authors to cast in high relief the micro-level politics and relations that feminists confront as they participate in transnational political movements. To examine the political spaces—centers, conferences, and campaigns—wherein transnational feminist politics are negotiated and expressed is, in itself, a highly valuable contribution to the study of contemporary social movements.

The authors' eagerness to connect the micro level of women's daily lives to the macro level of the global economy is an important methodological contribution to feminist scholarship, but, unfortunately, the breadth of focus does at times seem to preclude a depth of analysis of women's lives and labor in the global economy today. In many instances, the authors fail to create adequate links between their study and nuanced analyses of the broader processes of globalization, likely leaving the uninformed reader without a clear sense of the urgency and overall purpose of the transnational feminist politics presented throughout the text. Furthermore, the development of various concepts—particularly that of the “laboring body”—as well as the discussion of the gendered results of globalization, could have benefited from a deeper engagement with recent debates in feminist political economy.

As with any book, some issues and ideas have been left out or underdeveloped. For instance, while perhaps outside of the authors' scope, an analysis of the limitations of labor organizations in improving conditions for nonunionized workers—and particularly in the precarious, informal, and un-free sectors in which women are disproportionately concentrated today—would have been appropriate. Given the focus on the ways in which labor organizations are advancing women's rights and material conditions, rather than simply their contractual details, it would also have been interesting to hear more about how these movements are working across the critical differences in women's lives—along racial, geographical, cultural, and other lines—particularly in light of postcolonial critiques of Western feminists' tendency to universalize women's experiences. These gaps provide opportunities for feminist scholars to take forward the important issues raised in this book in future research and feminist praxis.

Ultimately, the significant achievement of the authors is to document union feminists' struggle to transform the sexual politics of various labor organizations and to assess how far and in what ways their efforts have better enabled labor unions to tackle the highly gendered consequences of globalization. This is a useful text for union feminists, the women's movement, and labor activists, as well as for students of labor and gender studies.