|
|
|
Review
| Evolution Toward Equality: Equality for Women in the American West, by Teresa S. Neal. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2006. 218 pages. $15.95, paper.
|
| Teresa Neal offers an insightful look at the development of women's rights in the American West in Evolution Toward Equality. Albeit brief, the work contains a substantial mix of theoretical reasoning that is supported by a number of case studies. Quite simply, Neal argues that the frontier environment of the American West provided opportunities for Anglo-American women unavailable in the East. These mid-to-lower-class western women embraced their frontier-based opportunity to secure political, social, and economic advancement well before such changes occurred in other parts of the nation. Thus, the author employs a variation of Frederick Jackson Turner's famed and much maligned "Frontier Thesis" to explain why western women led the way in acquiring suffrage rights, expanded employment opportunities, and an increased degree of gender equality. |
1
|
|
While Neal's reliance on a "Frontier Thesis" interpretation of the West certainly remains open to question, her application of a four-tiered evolutionary framework for gender equality provides the book with a provocative core for further discussion. At the first stage of the evolutionary process, she argues, women rejected established eastern models of gender relationships soon after their arrival in the West. Most important among these relationships was the strict adherence to the Cult of Domesticity forced upon them by eastern conventions and society. The first native-born generation of western women initiated the second stage, the evolution to equality, by embracing new role models. Rural western settings and increased opportunities for outdoor activities and work prompted western-born girls to look to their fathers as role models and pattern their goals and desires accordingly. Following upon and influenced and inspired by the initial two stages of the process and the openness of the western environment, women entered the third stage by "embracing something larger than themselves" (p. 6). Finally, after adopting these "positive new models," women entered the forth stage of evolving equality, the "blending of the roles of the formerly subordinate group with the dominant group on a more equal basis" (p. 143). |
2
|
|
Although Neal offers substantial support for her evolutionary framework and frontier-based theory of equality, her interpretation remains far from conclusive. One striking omission reveals itself in the lack of consideration given to the urban West. At times the reader is left with the idea of a singularly rural, isolated region devoid of urban life and experience. Neal explicitly draws such images by writing of the "isolation and loneliness of the westerners" ( p. 101), and by constructing such dichotomies as "the uncultured settlements of the West," versus "the urban centers of the East" (p. 75). Granted, she qualifies the book's conceptualization of the frontier early on as being based upon recently settled areas lacking sufficient populations to support Victorian ideals of womanhood. Yet works in urban history since the time of Richard C. Wade's Urban Frontier (1959) have shown that urban development certainly accompanied frontier expansion and often served as the spearhead of westward advancement. The author admits as much by placing some of her case studies in such urban environs as San Francisco and Salt Lake City. Unfortunately she chooses to apply her frontier theory to these women while providing no consideration of the mediating effects of their urban circumstances. Neal's lack of firm geographical placement of the West also raises concerns. By asserting that the "West" of her book and her western frontier "represent an environment rather than a specific locale" (p. ix), the author implies a degree of environmental homogeneity and determinism that is impossible to demonstrate for a frontier and a process over a geographical area stretching from the Appalachians to the Pacific Ocean. |
3
|
|
Regardless of these areas of contention, Evolution Toward Equality presents a valuable addition to the study of gender equality, family relationships, and western history. The work provides a compelling and easily accessible source of discussion material for graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses devoted to these fields. Likewise, the book's appendices of suffrage-granting dates and path-breaking western women will serve as helpful guides to readers and as a quick source of future reference for students. Overall, Neal provides a provocative, well-researched, and forcefully argued—albeit challengeable—interpretation of western women's evolutionary path toward greater gender equality. |
4
|
| | |
| University of Nevada, Las Vegas |
Jonathan Foster |
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|