| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 54

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Estelle B. Freedman, No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women (New York: Ballantine Books 2002)

WITH GREAT SKILL, historian Estelle B. Freedman synthesizes an enormous amount of interdisciplinary scholarship in this deceptively easy-to-read study of principal themes in contemporary feminist studies. Author of several books in US women's history and co-author with John D'Emilio of the frequently cited, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, her latest work, the dramatically titled, No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women, originated in feminist studies courses she created in the Feminist Studies program at Stanford University. This reasonably priced paperback edition promises to find an audience amongst students not only of feminist studies, gender studies, and women's studies, but across a host of academic disciplines. Freedman invokes an historical approach to her history of feminism, bringing together recent works from disciplines of sociology, economics, politics, history, sexology, literature, and the arts, to name a few. As a work of synthesis, with appeal to a popular as well as academic audience, the breadth of material and scholarship which the author presents in a readily accessible narrative, works, in some ways, against an analysis in depth of some themes which are briefly discussed in the work. A discursive bibliography, footnotes, and index, however, will aid the reader in further pursuing sources cited in the text.

The book is divided into five parts, offering discussion of the "historical emergence of feminisms," "the politics of work and family," "the politics of health and sexuality," and "feminist visions and strategies," including present and future prospects. Following both chronological and thematic strategies, the book opens with two principal concepts which serve to unify the structure of the book: the idea and critique of patriarchy, and the historical emergence of feminisms throughout history.

Elaborating upon the history of the term "feminism," which first appeared in print in the late 19th century, Freedman describes the changing political goals of feminism as a social movement in different times and locations. Centering her argument in the early modern and contemporary periods, she provides a working definition of feminism as applied in this study, "Feminism is a belief that women and men are inherently of equal worth. Because most societies privilege men as a group, social movements are necessary to achieve equality between women and men, with the understanding that gender always intersects with other social hierarchies."(7)

Following a brief discussion of ancient representations of women deities and their powers, Freedman introduces the idea of patriarchy and its historical impact upon women's economic, cultural, and reproductive labours. Offering a critique of patriarchy first argued by historian Gerda Lerner in her book, The Creation of Patriarchy (1986), Freedman emphasizes the role and impact of modern capitalism, markets, and trade upon family, society, and politics. She deftly moves the discussion from 17th- and 18th-century discussions of political right and sovereignty as expressed in the "democratic" revolutions of the 18th-century, to 19th-century liberal-feminist arguments for socio-political rights as an emerging political goal of feminism as a social movement.

Those already familiar with recent historiography of Western feminism will readily understand Freedman's periodization of feminist activism with her reference to First-Wave, Second-Wave, and Third-Wave Feminisms. The metaphor of "the wave" signifies the ebb and flow of political argument, with First-Wave feminism referring to the movements for socio-political rights in the 19th and early 20th centuries; Second-Wave feminism identified with social and political arguments of the second half of the 20th century, and contemporary Third-Wave feminism expressing global, international feminisms. Leaps sometimes occur in this sort of periodization; issues such as feminist political activism in the inter-war period, evident in feminist-internationalist arguments for peace considered as an issue of social justice, tend to be submerged by issues already identified with established categories of First and Second-Wave feminisms. A more inclusive metaphor, which may better serve discussions of historic feminisms, was recently described by historian Karen Often, in her study of European feminisms from 1700 to 1950, as geologic, marking the changing eruptions, flows, and movements of feminist activities — sometimes more visibly in motion in time and place, than at others.

Freedman insists that feminisms have been continually refined in different periods and cultures. She offers a lively discussion of the "politics of identity" in 20th-century US feminism, ranging from racialist and eugenic overtones of some early 20th-century argument, to the contemporary anti-racist workshops, and collective actions and struggles expressed in the poetry and writings of Barbara Smith, Cherie Moraga, Audre Lorde, the Combahee River Collective, and others.

Freedman offers an interesting synthesis of global and international feminisms in her discussion of the "politics of location" — a phrase invoked by poet Adrienne Rich in a 1984 essay on the historical context of white Western women's privileged location in systems of colonial slavery and exploitation. In a chapter entitled, "Re-thinking Feminism in the Postcolonial World," there is a convincing analysis of the gender gap in the dissemination of technological knowledge and skills — part of a historic attempt to confine women by limiting prospects not only for education, but for mobility in physical, intellectual, and economic terms.

Freedman is particularly engaging in her discussion of the body, sexuality, and health. She describes the "sexualization of women's bodies in popular culture," ranging in description from the later Victorian representations of female gender on the vaudeville stage, as "voluptuous British bombshell," to the boyish figure (elsewhere referred to as 'la garçonne'), in the literature of the 1920s, to contemporary commercial trends toward homogenizing body sizes and shapes. There are a growing number of secondary sources available to students of this period which variously discuss the sexual and colonial politics of gender representations of the later 19th and opening decades of the 20th century, which might be further explored in a less-condensed format. (Recent publications by historians Lesley Hall, Lucy Bland, Angela Woollacott, Philippa Levine, and Antoinette Burton as well as recent studies of the "new woman" and the "new man" of the later 19th and early 20th centuries, come to mind.)

Reviewing the contexts within which sexology and the labeling of homo- and hetero-sexualities arose, in the chapter entitled "Sexualities, Identities and Self-Determination," Freedman elaborates upon Eastern and Western notions of sexualities, and the creation of homosexual and lesbian identities and "taboos." A subsequent chapter vigorously analyzes the various forms of violence perpetrated as assertions of power and domination rape, domestic violence, sexual abuse of children, and incest. Freedman, citing theorist Nancy Hartsock, offers an alternate, feminist vision of the power of citizenship as self-determination rather than as power-over-others.

A recurring theme in this book is the political nature of power and the struggle of women to not only resist violence and exclusion, but to engage the positive powers of acting together, in community and social movements, in different times and places. "No turning back" is both the title of this book and of a concluding chapter on women and politics considered in a global and internationalist framework. Contemporary feminisms are global and thriving, concludes Freedman. Against the nay-sayers, this book offers a spirited call to action as well as an intelligent reply to critics of feminism, past and present.


Ellen Jacobs Université du Québec à Montréal

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