An erudite group effort encapsulating a long, laborious struggle that continues today.
Three distinguished academics offer a competent, compact history of the women’s liberation movement.
Hoping to “set the record straight” in challenging former perceptions of American women’s activism, Cobble (History and Labor Studies/Rutgers Univ.; Sex of Class: Women Transforming American Labor, 2007, etc.), Gordon (History and the Humanities/New York Univ.; Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits, 2009, etc.) and Henry (Women’s Studies/Grinnell Coll.; Not My Mother’s Sister: Generational Conflict and Third-Wave Feminism, 2004) condense a century’s worth of groundbreaking feminist lobbying into three densely packed sections. Cobble charts feminism’s early post-suffrage years from the 1920s to the 1960s, with a particular focus on the fiercely passionate social justice “gender pioneers” of the labor movement who fought for economic equality and civil rights. Gordon vibrantly chronicles the women’s liberation period through the “sex equality” decades of the 1960s to the 1980s, during which self-defined sexuality was championed alongside politically productive feminists’ organizations and sex-positive efforts. In the final section, Henry follows the movement’s progression through the millennial generation of women (and men) who employed the freedoms their predecessors fought so stridently for. Rebirthing the cause and continuing the good fight for gender equality, she writes, their efforts helped neutralize the stigma of LGBT visibility, “girlie feminism” and challenges to female reproductive rights in the 1990s. The authors’ comprehensive appreciation counters popular held myths by documenting the losses along with the progress, dispelling the imagery of the feminist as a “humorless, sexless reformer,” and, perhaps most profoundly, arguing against the belief that feminism is a marginal, minority-focused fight for equality when, to Cobble, Gordon, Henry and supporters nationwide, “it is a cause for everyone.” All three perspectives converge into a dramatic historical statement on the past and present condition of women’s rights and its power and omnipresence.
An erudite group effort encapsulating a long, laborious struggle that continues today.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-87140-676-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
A sharp, compelling, and impassioned book.
A London-based journalist offers her perspective on race in Britain in the early 21st century.
In 2014, Eddo-Lodge published a blog post that proclaimed she was “no longer engaging with white people on the topic of race.” After its viral reception, she realized that her mission should be to do the opposite, so she actively began articulating, rather than suppressing, her feelings about racism. In the first chapter, the author traces her awakening to the reality of a brutal British colonial history and the ways that history continues to impact race relations in the present, especially between blacks and the police. Eddo-Lodge analyzes the system that has worked against blacks and kept them subjugated to laws that work against—rather than for—them. She argues that it is not enough to deconstruct racist structures. White people must also actively see race itself by constantly asking “who benefits from their race and who is disproportionately impacted by negative stereotypes.” They must also understand the extent of the privileges granted them because of their race and work through racist fears that, as British arch-conservative Enoch Powell once said, “the black man will [one day] have the whip hand over the white man.” Eddo-Lodge then explores the fraught question of being a black—and therefore, according to racist stereotype—“angry” female and the ways her “assertiveness, passion and excitement” have been used against her. In examining the relationship between race and class, the author further notes the way British politicians have used the term “white” to qualify working class. By leaving out reference to other members of that class, they “compound the currency-like power of whiteness.” In her probing and personal narrative, Eddo-Lodge offers fresh insight into the way all racism is ultimately a “white problem” that must be addressed by commitment to action, no matter how small. As she writes, in the end, “there's no justice, there's just us.”
A sharp, compelling, and impassioned book.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4088-7055-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
SEEN & HEARD
Dramatic, immersive, and wanting—much like desire itself.
Based on eight years of reporting and thousands of hours of interaction, a journalist chronicles the inner worlds of three women’s erotic desires.
In her dramatic debut about “what longing in America looks like,” Taddeo, who has contributed to Esquire, Elle, and other publications, follows the sex lives of three American women. On the surface, each woman’s story could be a soap opera. There’s Maggie, a teenager engaged in a secret relationship with her high school teacher; Lina, a housewife consumed by a torrid affair with an old flame; and Sloane, a wealthy restaurateur encouraged by her husband to sleep with other people while he watches. Instead of sensationalizing, the author illuminates Maggie’s, Lina’s, and Sloane’s erotic experiences in the context of their human complexities and personal histories, revealing deeper wounds and emotional yearnings. Lina’s infidelity was driven by a decade of her husband’s romantic and sexual refusal despite marriage counseling and Lina's pleading. Sloane’s Fifty Shades of Grey–like lifestyle seems far less exotic when readers learn that she has felt pressured to perform for her husband's pleasure. Taddeo’s coverage is at its most nuanced when she chronicles Maggie’s decision to go to the authorities a few years after her traumatic tryst. Recounting the subsequent trial against Maggie’s abuser, the author honors the triumph of Maggie’s courageous vulnerability as well as the devastating ramifications of her community’s disbelief. Unfortunately, this book on “female desire” conspicuously omits any meaningful discussion of social identities beyond gender and class; only in the epilogue does Taddeo mention race and its impacts on women's experiences with sex and longing. Such oversight brings a palpable white gaze to the narrative. Compounded by the author’s occasionally lackluster prose, the book’s flaws compete with its meaningful contribution to #MeToo–era reporting.
Dramatic, immersive, and wanting—much like desire itself.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4229-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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