Globalization has intensified the pressures on poor women. They have resisted in both the North and the South in movements that are exclusively female and in others where women play a significant part. This book brings together scholars and organizers to record and analyze women's grassroots activism in two key areas: claims to livelihood and human rights. Opening with the historical struggle for emancipation, it covers more recent examples of diverse resistance: women fighting for environmental and reproductive rights, mobilizing against poverty and racism, fighting the inequalities imposed by structural adjustment programmes and campaigning for human rights. The cases range form the British miners' strike to making gender central to the Guatemalan peace process. They contribute to the ongoing debate about the scope of women's movements, while demonstrating how women's activism around needs and rights is a crucial element in the global struggle for equality and justice.