No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women

"This wonderful sweeping history takes the broadest definition of feminism: organized resistance to male oppression. Its author Estelle Freedman has a magical ability to summarize a hundred years of history in three sentences. While she concentrates on telling the story of the emergence of a conscious women’s movement—particularly in the West, Europe and North America in the 19th and 20th centuries—she also talks about the ways resistance unfolded across other parts of the world and in other contexts. She gives us the big picture of the ways that women have called into question male dominance, and she explores the range of arenas where women resist gender-based oppression. She talks about home, family, and the workplace, as well as sexuality and reproduction. She tells a big picture story about the sweeping efforts of feminists in many different arenas. That’s fair to say. Although there’s evidence of matriarchal societies (and evidence that in some societies, women had greater degrees of status), I think there is general agreement that patriarchy has been prevalent across the globe throughout history. The Enlightenment helped formulate or give birth to ideas about individual rights and individual autonomy that were critical to the development of a new understanding of women’s status and women’s rights."