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Woman: The American History of an Idea
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About This Book
A comprehensive history of the struggle to define womanhood in America, from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century What does it mean to be a "woman" in America? Award-winning gender and sexuality scholar Lillian Faderman traces the evolution of the meaning from Puritan ideas of God's plan for women to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and its reversals to the impact of such recent events as #metoo, the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the election of Kamala Harris as vice president, and the transgender movement. This wide-ranging 400-year history chronicles conflicts, retreats, defeats, and hard-won victories in both the private and the public sectors and shines a light on the often-overlooked battles of enslaved women and women leaders in tribal nations. Noting that every attempt to cement a particular definition of "woman" has been met with resistance, Faderman also shows that successful challenges to the status quo are often short-lived. As she underlines, the idea of womanhood in America continues to be contested.
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"Faderman ably brings the discussion into the 21st century and the present day, when nonbinary conceptions of gender are gaining further acceptance in the mainstream even as the resolutely patriarchal system—perfectly embodied by Donald Trump and his cohorts—continues to fight against anything other than a strictly binary gender structure."
"Still, this is a comprehensive and lucid overview of the ongoing campaign to free women from 'the tyranny of old notions.'"
"Potato Head...it doesn't really sink into the psyche as one might expect, given that Faderman is one of the pre-eminent L.G.B.T.Q."
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