The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America
Rosen, Ruth. 2000. The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America. New York: Viking.
Rating:
6
Summary:
Good historical overview of the ‘women’s movement’ in the U.S. from the 1960s through the 1980s
The book seems to follow a loosely chronological order, beginning with the roots of the movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s and slowly moving through the 1970s and into the 1980s. Even though the book follows a chronological order, the author certainly doesn’t feel bound by it as she jumps around in time quite a bit. The last couple of chapters transition from the chronological discussion to examining issues or subsections of the movement (e.g., black feminists, human potential, etc.).The author touches on many of the ‘leaders’ of the movement as well as most of the important events, including conferences, magazines (Ms., in particular), and books. Also included are several personal anecdotes of the author who has been an active participant in the movement for at least two decades. There is also lengthy discussion surrounding the organizations that helped spawn the women’s movement, most prominently it seems, the New Left movement.
The author does not overlook some of the most significant problems that influenced (and perhaps continue to influence) the movement. The biggest problems revolved around issues of leadership and backstabbing. Because the movement was essentially fighting the existing power hierarchy, feminists were hesitant to organize power structures within the movement. As a result, the movement was particularly prone to fractures and in-fighting. The author’s case study of Sagaris, a feminist retreat in New England that fell apart in large part because of these types of problems, is insightful in this regard. Interestingly, many of the problems are included with the discussion of the infiltration of the FBI (pp. 239-260), as at least some of the problems have been directly attributed by movement members (who exhibited a bit too much paranoia for me) to FBI attempts to destroy the movement.
Review:
While the book is insightful and informative on a number of fronts, it is not without its problems. The problems first… The most prevalent problem is that the book lacks a clear structure. While it does seem to follow a loose, chronological order, it jumps around far more than it needs to. The author will begin discussing someone that had an early influence on the movement, then jump back in time to explore that person’s past and the influences on it, then jump back to the influence of the individual. While this is occasionally helpful in presenting a larger picture, it is generally just distracting.
The book is also missing several things I felt would have helped the reader better understand the movement. Other than the occasional reference to what the author refers to as the ‘First Wave’ of feminist activity (the activity of women in the late 19th and early 20th century resulting in the suffrage amendment), there is no discussion of these activists. The book also leaves off without a clear understanding of where the ‘movement’ stands today. I put ‘movement’ in quotes here largely because it doesn’t seem to be a clearly organized social group but rather a number of small groups working toward specific issues. At the end of the book I didn’t have a clear answer to the question: Is the women’s movement dead?
In a book about the women’s movement and feminism, a clear delineation of the different types of feminism (e.g., liberal, radical, etc.) would have been useful, but it wasn’t included. Finally, there is virtually no discussion of feminist theory. The author briefly mentions feminist critiques of science, but this takes up one to two paragraphs and is glossed over as though irrelevant. While the author does summarize several important books (e.g., The Second Sex, de Beauvoir), there is no real treatment of feminist theory. As this seems to be one of the biggest contributions of the movement, I found this oversight unfortunate.
Turning to some of the positives of the book… One thing the book does do well is illustrate – though it is likely just a glimpse – of how bigoted and chauvinistic U.S. society was prior to the 1970s. For instance, the Canada Dry ad (p. 205) claiming a good woman ‘won’t quit on you’ is despicable. If life for women was even half as deplorable as depicted in this book, it would behoove men to beg for forgiveness for, well, pretty much the rest of the existence of humanity (or at least until we reach a universally accepted parity…).
The book also does a good job of laying out some of the successes of the women’s movement. For instance, sexual harassment in the work place and spousal abuse in the home are now recognized as crimes as a direct result of women’s movement activities. Though Title VII somewhat predated a formal organization of the movement, the women’s movement made it apply and brought litigation that would enforce it. Additionally, the cultural changes that have made it possible for women to speak openly about just about everything resulted from the women’s movement. Of course, there are those that dislike what has happened (conservative Christians, among others), but I believe/hope they are a declining minority.
The book also dispels what the author describes as the most tenacious myth of the movement – that feminists were bra-burners. As the author notes (p. 160), when the idea was first mentioned, it was said as a joke at a protest. The media later claimed that burning bras is what took place at the event. Whether bras have ever been burned isn’t discussed, but what the author does make clear is that bra-burning was a creation of the media and not a symbol of the movement. The most common symbol of men’s oppression used by the women’s movement was an apron, not a bra.
The author also discusses two prominent movements that coincided with the women’s movement and, at least in part, affected it: ‘the religious right’ and what she terms, ‘the human potential’ movement. She notes that the religious right was primarily a counter-movement developed to counteract the progressive influence of the women’s movement. The primary focus has been, and continues to be for the most part, to turn society back to the 1950s when abortions were illegal, women were stuck – depressed and angry – in the home, and society was segregated by sex (and race, but that’s another discussion). Given the author’s views, I was impressed by how objectively she treated the religious right; for my part, I can’t wait to see them disappear.
The ‘human potential’ movement is also an interesting phenomenon. Basically, this is the author’s term for the ‘self-help’ phenomenon coupled with New Age thought and some of the other spiritual practices that started in the early 1970s (or perhaps even the late 1960s). The author examines how this has been both helpful for some women involved with the women’s movement, but also detrimental at times. One intriguing point that is implied by the author, but not clearly examined is the idea that the increasing consumerism of the 1970s and 1980s was partially responsible for the rise of the self-help ‘age’ of the 1980s and 1990s. Basically, it seems as though self-help literature was aimed at curing the alienation Karl Marx predicted would accompany capitalism nearly a century and a half earlier. As people grow increasingly dehumanized in their work, they have to look for ways to find self-fulfillment outside of work, and self-help literature tries to fill that gap. I, personally, think the bulk of it is bunk (the author doesn’t really come down with an opinion on this topic), but it is interesting when you look at it from this perspective.
Finally, the book does read more like an insider ethnography than a purely historical treatment written years after the fact, but that isn’t surprising considering the movement hasn’t really ended (?!?) and the author was/is involved with it. While the ‘insider’ aspect of this book makes it more engaging, it also precludes it from being a truly objective examination of the movement. After reading the book, I felt like it focused too intently on the movement and did not step back to offer a glimpse of the bigger picture. The author draws some of these connections – like the movement’s involvement with the anti-war movement and a quick glossing over of the apparent lack of involvement with the gay rights movement – but the whole picture of what was taking place through the late 1960s up to the 1980s is never really laid out for the reader.
Overall, this is a good, historical treatment of the women’s movement. Given the size of the book as it currently stands, the fact that it is missing discussions of feminist theories, the connections of the women’s movement to other movements, and a discussion of ‘First Wave’ feminists can be forgiven, though suggested additional reading on each of these topics following small discussions of them would have been helpful. (The book does have an extensive bibliography, but it isn’t organized by topic.) It could also have used a clearer format, but is overall a good book that I would recommend for those interested in a slightly myopic treatment of the women’s movement.