The image of “backlash” is pervasive in contemporary debates about the impact of second-wave feminism on law and policy. But does it really explain the resistance to feminist initiatives for social change in contemporary culture?

In this timely volume, contributors from various disciplines analyze reaction and resistance to feminism in several areas of law and policy – child custody, child poverty, sexual harassment, and sexual assault – and in a number of institutional sites, such as courts, legislatures, families, the mainstream media, and the academy. Collectively, their studies paint a more complicated, often contradictory, picture of feminism, law, and social change than the popular image of backlash suggests.

Reaction and Resistance offers feminists and other activists empirically grounded knowledge that can be used to develop legal and political strategies for change.