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BooksRecommended Reading- The Making of Women: Oxford Essays in Feminism
Posted June 24, 2023 by Lampdarker in WomensHistory

I recently finished rereading it, it's a century-old book that focuses on first-wave feminism. It's an excellent snapshot into the latter half of this era of feminism in the UK by some of the more competent thinkers of the time. This was on the verge of women getting the vote, mind you. Obviously, much has changed since, even though just as much hasn't. "Separate spheres" ideology is still prevalent though less so than the culture at large, for instance there's a lot of considerations about lowering the burden of child care on women, intertwined with wage gap discourse, that doesn't even consider the possibility of men getting more involved. Eugenicism is rife, although more moderate than many of their peers.

Related, speaking more broadly of feminism in the West, you can see many of the trends that ended up with the label "feminist" falling out of favor for a couple generations with WWII until the 70's. The common dating of the first wave from the mid 18th century to suffrage (1918 UK 1920 US) followed by a conspicuous gap until the start of the second wave certainly isn't because women stopped organizing or calling themselves feminist, but because after suffrage so many went on to like the British union of fascist, Women's KKK, various eugenics programs, etc, and modern feminism doesn't identify with. This book gives you insight into the tendencies which preceded these midcentury phenomena.

1 comments

notsofreshfeelingJune 24, 2023

Sounds interesting. I'll put it on my reading list.