Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged women's movement

A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s

Stephanie Coontz has taken on a project of mythical proportions with her latest work, A Strange Stirring, an examination of the impact Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique had on American society and culture in the 1960s. A Strange Stirring looks at both the book’s message to women during this stifling time and investigates the life of Friedan herself, giving the author credit for her truly remarkable work while laying bare some of the controversies surrounding the groundbreaking work.

Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America

The feminist experience of women in Latin America is not one that is often written about or discussed. Many discussions about politics in Latin America leave feminism out, as discussions of feminism in general are often limited to the U.S. and Europe.

Success and Solitude: Feminist Organizations Fifty Years After The Feminine Mystique

Much ado has been made over the fact that an increasing number of women do not identify themselves with the feminist movement, but there has been little consensus over why this is so. Why, in an era where girls grow up being told “you can be anything you want to be,” do many women reject affiliation with feminism?

The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization

The propagated image of the "modern woman" is usually White and lithely strutting the streets of New York or Paris. Hollywood films as well as vintage prints in hip clothing boutiques give us the familiar image of a short-cropped brunette in smart dress. The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group (comprised by the book's editors) has collected a group of essays suggesting that this fabulous 1920’s to 1930’s woman was an international phenomenon, and not merely a Western emulation.

Gender and Class in the Egyptian Women’s Movement, 1925-1939: Changing Perspectives

Gender and Class reads like the last reference book in a lengthy series about the Egyptian women’s movement. I came to this review ready to learn something about a time in history that most people probably know very little about. I came away learning only a few ‘vocab’ words from the glossary. Cathlyn Mariscotti’s book reads more like a thesis essay reflecting on a scholarly course the audience has taken rather than a text written for the general reader.

Feminist Media Reconsidered

Some of the most incisive feminist analysis today is being published in the groundbreaking make/shift magazine. Started by three activists – Jessica Hoffmann, Daria Yudacufski, and Stephanie Abraham, who first worked together as founders and editors of the feminist zine LOUDmouth – make/shift is run by an editorial/publishing collective committed to antiracist, transnational, and queer perspectives.

Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico

Mary Kay Vaughn, in her introduction to Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico, asserts that while paternalism, Catholicism, Victorian morals and patriarchy experienced a fierce health before, during and after the Mexican Revolution, the women’s movement, while slow, was undeniable and, ultimately, irreversible.