women in Lahore and in June 1931, hosted a conference in Jakarta which was focused on inspiring action against the issue of polygamy- calling the attention of the Muslim world to emulate the modernisation practices of Mustapha Kemal in reforming Turkey and protecting the rights of women through abolishing polygamy. The effects of political and social reforms regarding the women’s question were far reaching; tales of the movements of Turkish feminists reached Afghanistan, Egypt and other Muslim countries- particularly, women in these countries looked to Turkey as an example for the issue of polygamy. The Kabo reforms in Korea, which banned child marriage and gave widows the legal right to remarry, were inspired by Japan. The Federation of Indonesian Women’s Association acknowledged the influence of Indian, Persian, Turkish and Chinese feminist movements on liberation movements in their country at the conference in Lahore in 1931. The interconnectedness of these movements has been impressed upon throughout Kumari’s work. Central argument Kumari explores two central themes through this comparative narrative; first, she debunks the Eurocentric belief that feminism is not indigenous to Asia and Africa but rather a western ‘import’. She has emphasised that a political account on women’s struggles in the East is necessary for both: a Western audience that is ignorant about the existence of a rich history of women’s emancipation in the East, and the women of these countries who are unaware of the role in liberation struggles of their ancestors and great-grandmothers. Second, she challenges the leftist view that women are liberated through entering the labour force and access to education- claiming that women cannot be liberated unless they achieve political, social and economic equality en masse. It is argued that while most feminist movements in the East apparently improved the status of women in these societies through increased participation in politics and commerce, feminist consciousness did not develop to the extent of improving women’s conditions irrespective of class or in questioning their oppression in the family. In the introduction, Kumari identifies the limitations of her work: the lack of research regarding certain countries as opposed to others, the limited scope of study of the lower and working-class women’s role in emancipation efforts and how little is known about the role of women in pre-colonial, pre-capitalist societies. About the author Kumari Jayawardena was born in 1931. She credits her family as the source of her early interest in