The Feminist Promise

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For more than two centuries, the ranks of feminists have included dreamy idealists and conscientious reformers, erotic rebels and angry housewives, dazzling writers, shrewd political strategists, and thwarted workingwomen. With a deft hand, Stansell paints richly detailed, surprising portraits of well-known leaders: Mary Wollstonecraft, the passionate English writer who in 1792 published the first full-scale argument for the rights of women; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, brilliant and fearless; the imperious, quarrelsome Betty Friedan. Others, too, appear in unforgettable new light, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who in the 1970s led a revolution in the constitutional interpretations of women's rights, and Toni Morrison, whose bittersweet prose gave voice to the modern black female experience. Stansell accounts for the failures of feminism as well as the successes. She notes significant moments in the struggle for gender equality, such as the emergence in the early 1900s of the dashing 'New Woman'; the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote; the post-World War II collapse of suburban neo-Victorianism; and the radical feminism of the 1960s--all of which led to vast changes in American culture and society. The Feminist Promise dramatically updates our understanding of feminism, taking the story through the age of Reagan and into the era of international feminist movements that have swept the globe."--Book jacket