Embracing the Language of Human Rights: International Women's Organisations,Feminism and Campaigns Against the Marriage Bar,c.1919–1960

This article considers four international women's organisations – the International Council of Women, the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, the International Federation of University Women and the Open Door International – and their campaigns for the right of married women to undertake paid work. It examines how each organisation adopted and engaged with the language of human rights in the late 1920s and 1930s. It is argued that after 1948, precisely because of its formal adoption by the UN, the language of human rights became less usable as a way to make the point that women still faced inequalities, and so other framings became more significant. This article contributes to historiographies on international women's organisations, offers a detailed discussion of their activism against the marriage bar, and challenges the conventional chronology of the concept and language of human rights.     

Book review

Herman C. Kemp. Annotated bibliography of bibliographies on Indonesia. xvii, 433pp. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1990. (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal‐, Land‐ en Volkenkunde. Bibliographical series, 17.) Guilders 70.     

Some Second Thoughts about Theory in the Social Sciences

When Professor Papageorgiou submitted his brief essay in the spring of 1982 (“Some Thoughts about Theory in the Social Sciences, GA [October 1982], pp. 340-46), I decided to use it as a vehicle to provoke a discussion of the issues he raised. I invited a number of scholars to submit brief and informal statements on these issues and these responses are assembled in the following pages. The variety of styles and contents of the submissions reflects the diversity that is contemporary human geography. I hope that this forum enhances our appreciation of the points-of-view of others. Convergence towards a single widely accepted epistemological framework appears to be further away than ever.     

The Policy Analysis of Water Shortages

Allen V. Kneese and F. Lee Brown, The Southwest Under Stress .
Richard A. Berk, et al., Water Shortage .