Full Description
No Permanent Waves boldly enters the ongoing debates over the utility of the "wave" metaphor for capturing the complex history of women's rights by offering fresh perspectives on the diverse movements that comprise U.S. feminism, past and present. Seventeen essays--both original and reprinted--address continuities, conflicts, and transformations among women's movements in the United States from the early nineteenth century through today.
A respected group of contributors from diverse generations and backgrounds argue for new chronologies, more inclusive conceptualizations of feminist agendas and participants, and fuller engagements with contestations around particular issues and practices. Race, class, and sexuality are explored within histories of women's rights and feminism as well as the cultural and intellectual currents and social and political priorities that marked movements for women's advancement and liberation. These essays question whether the concept of waves surging and receding can fully capture the complexities of U.S. feminisms and suggest models for reimagining these histories from radio waves to hip-hop.
Contents
Introduction
Part I: Reframing Narratives/Reclaiming Histories
Chapter 1. From Seneca Falls to Suffrage?
Chapter 2. Multiracial Feminism
Chapter 3. Black Feminisms and Human Agency
"We Have a Long, Beautiful History"
Chapter 5. Unsettling "Third Wave Feminism"
Part II: Coming Together/Pulling Apart
Chapter 6. Overthrowing the "Monopoly of the Pulpit"
Chapter 7. Labor Feminists and President Kennedy's Commission on Women
Chapter 8. Expanding the Boundaries of the Women's Movement
Chapter 9. Rethinking Global Sisterhood
Chapter 10. Living a Feminist Lifestyle
Chapter 11. Strange Bedfellows
Chapter 12. From Sisterhood to Girlie Culture
Part III: Rethinking Agendas/Relocating Activism
Chapter 13. Staking Claims to Independence
Chapter 14. "I Had Not Seen Women Like That Before"
Chapter 15. The Hidden History of Affirmative Action
Chapter 16. U.S. Feminism-Grrrl Style!
Chapter 17. "Under Construction"
