ABSTRACT

Womanhoods and Equality in the United States explores how the idea of equality has evolved along with the debates that have animated contemporary American women’s history.

This book argues that “womanhood” is neither a unified concept nor a monolithic experience but rather a multifaceted notion. This collection thus looks at this plural dimension of womanhood—womanhoods—with a special focus on equality as a common goal. The authors question what equality means depending on many factors such as race, class, sexuality, education, marital or parental status, physical appearance, and political orientation, and address timely issues including abortion rights, Black womanhood, and sexual violence on college campuses.

Womanhoods and Equality in the United States is an essential resource for academics and students in gender studies, American sociocultural history, and the sociology of social movements.

part I|73 pages

Fashioning and Refashioning Womanhoods

chapter 1|22 pages

Echoes of Womanhood

Listening to Women's Voices on the Radio

chapter 2|25 pages

Women's Magazines and Fashion Magazines as (Re)Sources for (De)Constructing Womanhood

Working on Femininity, from Producers to Readers to Researchers

chapter 3|24 pages

The Right to Be Beautiful

Annie Malone, Beauty Culture, and New Negro Womanhood

part II|74 pages

Violence and Womanhood

chapter 5|23 pages

Gender-Based and State Violence from Central America to the U.S./Mexico Border

From Invisibility to Visibility

chapter 6|24 pages

Title IX

Fighting Sexual Violence on U.S. College Campuses by Reframing It as Sex Discrimination

part III|45 pages

Womanhood

chapter 7|20 pages

“Just a Housewife”

Reassessing Feminist Portrayals of the American Housewife in the 1960s and 1970s