How have women's movements challenged states over the past thirty years to deal with women's status and make them incorporate women as political actors? How have states responded to the challenge posed by the rise of the ‘second wave’ of feminism? Women's movement activists demanded state measures on a broad and diverse set of issues, ranging from equal representation in political decision-making and anti-discrimination measures on the labour market to the combat of sexual violence and the right to abortion. Governments responded by developing a varied set of ‘women's policy machineries’ (UN 1993), institutions to deal with such demands, ranging from temporary committees to full-fledged permanent departments within the national bureaucracy. The research described in this book addresses the role of these institutions in advancing the goals of women's movements in a number of post-industrial democracies. It focuses on one of the issues which re-emerged as a feminist concern, prostitution, and it sets out to answer the question of whether these institutions, here termed ‘women's policy agencies’, have been effective in dealing with the issue.

In this way the book raises the larger issue of whether governments have actually improved women's status, promoted women's rights and reduced gender-hierarchies that are at the basis of the inequalities between women and men.