REVIEW: 'No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women' by Estelle B. Freedman

Where to begin?

I'll first say I'm using the word history instead of herstory throughout this post, for two reasons: 1) because that is the word Estelle Freedman uses in the book I'm reviewing; and 2) because that is just the word, and history wasn't really derived from the words "his story."  Fake etymologies bug me.  (Yes, I understand the social importance inherent in the statement of herstory, but to use it over and over again as if it were a word instead of a statement sounds silly to me.  So I'm sorry if I turned off any radical feminists out there, but I hope you'll read my review anyway because it was a really good book.  And sorry I got stuck on this tangent, of course we can argue about herstory later.  I'd like to hear your opinions.)

I'll start the actual review by saying this book is a great general resource to have on hand, whether you're just getting to know the intricacies of women's studies, or whether you're a seasoned scholar.  Freedman's writing is clear, and easy to follow.  There are no involved explanations of theory or feminist philosophy.  Everything is pretty blunt, actually.  There are feminist undertones, of course, but there is no sense of urgency or adamancy to make you feel uncomfortable with the subject matter.  Her tone is authoritative, but her voice definitely gives away her profession (she is a professor at Stanford).  She writes just as though she were giving an important lecture.  Her style is informative, but not invasive.  And even though I now believe this was meant to be used as a text book rather than...well, I don't really know what I expected...it was actually pleasant for me to read.  I can honestly say I was not bored.

However: this book is not formatted in a chronological sequence of events.  I assume this is because Freedman covers most of the globe in her work, and if she'd attempted to put everything in order, she would have wound up with way more than 397 pages (paperback), plus she'd really risk boring everyone.  The book is instead divided into sections that are all cornerstones of feminist(s) philosophy -- even though, I'll reiterate, it doesn't expound on very much of the theories themselves.  These are sections like: The Politics of Work and Family (including separate spheres, the rise of capitalism and industrialization, wage labor, and motherhood); The Politics of Health and Sexuality (including reproduction, gender and identity, and violence); and Feminist Visions and Strategies (including modern-day politics and the realm of creativity).  There are notes of the politics here, but I feel the book is written so that even a woman who is uncomfortable referring to herself as a feminist could be interested.  Freedman did a much better job making this work inclusive than say, Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks.

The one negative I'll discuss is the absence of personal histories.  Because Freedman covers so much global history, I felt like she didn't have enough space for individual perspective, something I know is growing in importance for the U.S. movement.  Much of the book was statement/fact (reminiscent of my gradeschool textbooks), although she did not often directly cite her sources.  Similarly, the rare quotations were often only attributed to their speakers rather than their speakers and their contexts.  In some instances endnotes or appendices were included, but every so often I would wonder where she got her info.  Several times I found myself curious about where I could find more information on certain topics, wishing she'd disclosed her resources in a particular paragraph rather than at the end of the book.  Sometimes the personal stories she did include were vague.  I think if she'd focused on only U.S. history, she might have been able to go more in-depth.  But of course, the very definition of feminism, not to mention its history, should include a global perspective, so I think her approach was the correct one to take; and Freedman did make it easy to see how progress in one country could affect the progress in another.  I think the interdependence of the movement in different countries has made it hard to write such a comprehensive history.  Ms. Freedman's is the only one of its kind I could find.  I do applaud her for taking on such an in-depth project -- and for pulling through well enough to give us such an excellent resource of feminist history.

NEXT UP: The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening and The Struggle, by L. J. Smith. (I decided to go two at a time...I think it will be easier on all you anti-vamps out there. ;) )

Teaser Tuesday!

I realized last week that I've been reading the same book for almost a month and I still haven't teased you with it.  So here it is, dangling in front of you, for this month's first Teaser Tuesday!

1. Grab your current read.*
2. Let the book fall open to a random page.
3. Share with us two (2)** "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
4. Share the title and author of the book, so we can investigate on our own if we like the teaser you've given!
5. Please avoid spoilers!

*To keep this feature periodic, I will be using both teasers from current reads, and from books I've read before, but haven't discussed on this blog.

**Quantity of sentences may vary, depending on how long it takes to finish the thought within those line parameters. Teasers should still make sense!

This week's teaser comes from No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women, by Estelle B. Freedman.  Seeing as how it's also Black History Month, I thought these sentences were particularly appropriate:

"Once again, African American women struggled on several fronts for suffrage, to improve conditions for their race, and to achieve equality with white women.  Black women wanted the vote not only for themselves but also as a way to represent their race in those northern states where blacks could exercise the franchise." 

Curious yet?  Happy teasing!

EmbarrASSed

I was watching an episode of Sex & the City today -- "Cover Girl."  The girls are in a bookstore, helping Carrie research ideas for her new book cover while they browse for their own purchases.  Charlotte is looking for a copy of Starting Over Yet Again, while Miranda searches for a book with a title like "How to Lose That Baby Fat While Sitting on Your Ass."  Miranda settles on From Fat to Fit, but then decides against buying it when the sales clerk advises her to start Weight Watchers instead.  Charlotte, nervous about being seen in the Self-Help section, decides to order her book online.

The episode got me thinking: we've all read something to make us feel uncomfortable.  What books have I been embarrassed about reading in public?  And why?

In college, my roommate and I took an LGBT-awareness class.  Our first assignment was to buy Brian McNaught's Now That I'm Out, What Do I Do? somewhere other than the campus bookstore.  The purpose was to put us in a place outside of our comfort zone, so we could understand what the LGBT community, their parents, and their friends go through when they go to buy the same books.  My roommate shared with me that she did in fact feel a little embarrassed walking around the bookstore with it.  She felt like she was being looked at differently.  I remember being proud of myself for getting through the assignment with little to no feelings of shame.  Now that I look back, I know I should have tried harder to put myself in others' shoes.

For me, the most recent book I can think of makes me ashamed to even bring up the story.  Not because of the book itself, but because of the very fact that I was embarrassed to be seen with it.  I am embarrassed for my embarrassment.  Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America, by Ellen Chesler, should not have caused these feelings to bubble up in me.  I usually have no problem admitting to anyone, even strangers, that I consider myself a feminist.  Yet there I was, keeping the book huddled against my chest every morning as I made the walk from the parking garage to my workplace.

It's amazing how once you're out of the safety of a college campus, all your ideals have to become...private.  Inoffensive.  The issue with me this time had to do with exactly that -- offensiveness.  It was the abortion topic...or at least, that's how I was perceiving people perceiving me.

Honestly, my thinking was in line with Margaret's.  I believe women should have a choice when it comes to their bodies, which is why I was so excited to find this book on the shelf.  I was enthralled with Margaret Sanger and her story when I learned about her in my Philosophy of Women class.  Her movement spoke to me.  Her struggle to make birth control accessible and normalized for all women was something I could really look up to.  Reading her biography, which promised to be just as accessible, would be like icing on the cake.

But reading the book about Margaret soon became my own struggle.  The book was not as "readable" as the cover proclaimed.  But not only that, I was finding out a lot about Ms. Sanger that was spoiling my idea of her.  Who knew that role models could be human?

Anyway, it wasn't so much Margaret's personality that made me duck the book under my armpit as I walked the streets of Cleveland.  I may be a feminist, but I know Margaret Sanger is an obscure enough name that no one would be offended by that alone.  No, it was the rest of the title that I was hiding: The Birth Control Movement in America. 

But why?  Why did I care?  I still can't explain it.  Maybe it was the stereotypes.  Maybe it was my own self-righteous opinion of myself.  I did not want people to see me as a baby killer.  Because I know that's not what pro-choice means.  But the simple people on the street, they didn't.  I am such an ass!  I can't believe myself.

I stopped reading Woman of Valor.  Not because of the embarrassment.  It truly was just too hard to get through.  The writing was too elevated.  But the shame I feel now when realizing how embarrassed I was for reading that book is still going on.

I sort of meant to make this post more light-hearted.  You know, talk about the trashy romance novels I also take care to hide in my purse when making the commute to the office.  Or the fantasy fiction novels I enjoy with the dragons on the cover.  But I think it was more important to make this other, more serious point to myself.


They say that if you assume something, you make an ass out of you and me.  I found that it's true...and to be embarrassed about my reading choices just makes an ass out of, em, me.

Celebrity Book Sighting

So I'm sitting and watching the Parks and Recreation episode I missed two weeks ago while I began the first long drive of my vacation. It's Episode # 203, entitled "Beauty Pageant." The plot in brief: Leslie Knope, Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation, serves as a judge for the local Pawnee beauty pageant. The subplot thickens as she discovers the police officer who is interested in dating her is not quite familiar with her real-life female role models -- specifically, Madeleine Albright.

It's the last scene of the episode, and I almost closed my full screen view so I could push on to view The Office episode I also missed, when...could it really be? Yes! It is! What do I spy in the background but a copy of Gail Collins's America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines! My favorite history book of all time!

America's Women on Leslie Knope's bookshelf:



America's Women on my own bookshelf:




I love this book with all my heart. It was the first book I ever read, at the ripe old age of 22, to really get me interested in, and sometimes fascinated with, history. From the era of the very first colonists up to the 21st century, Gail Collins, an editor at the New York Times, explores the common life, struggles, victories, failures, political activism, and overall history of American women. She includes many races, backgrounds, and classes in one of the largest compilations of diary entries, articles, books, and journals I've ever seen. According to Amazon, "...some of these women -- from the justly famous, like Clara Barton and Harriet Tubman, to the undeservedly obscure, like Elizabeth Eckford and Senator Margaret Chase Smith -- will not only make any woman proud to be a woman, they will make any American proud to be American."

I am absolutely smitten with this book. Admittedly, it took me a whole summer and then some to get through it...the amount of content is just so vast, and I'll confess that not all of the stories held my attention equally. At first, it's even a little befuddling. I thought I'd try to take notes in the margins, but there are so many stories about so many women, I'd already lost track by the 3rd chapter. I had to learn to let some 'characters' go, because they rarely turned up again later. You kind of have to let what stands out to you really stand alone, and let the rest fall where it may. Let me clarify. It's all so interesting; so many of the stories felt...inherent...to me. But I think it qualifies as a great re-read because I'd bet you'd learn something new every time. Really, you have no idea how much she fit into this little 608-page book (yes, 608 pages will seem ridiculously minuscule when you think about how much she probably didn't include).

The book was such an important discovery for me. It really did make me feel closer to my heritage as an American, and as an American woman. When I saw it in the background of last week's Parks and Recreation, I was so ecstatic. I feel driven to share how much I love this book every time I think about it. I'm surprised this whole blog hasn't had at least one mention of it by now. Well, I'm finally saying something. Go pick up a copy of America's Women by Gail Collins, and learn. Endorsed by Leslie Knope.* It's what it was written for.


*Not an actual endorsement.