Introduction

In July 1997, Women’s Studies Network (UK) Association held its tenth annual conference entitled ‘Women, Policy and Politics’. The aim of the conference was to bring together women from all over the world and from as many different professional backgrounds and disciplines as possible with special emphasis placed on reaching women from both inside and outside academia. The conference attracted an international array of delegatesnearly two hundred papers were given over three days-and it was from this wide range that the chapters for this book were drawn.