Synopses & Reviews
In this study of women from the Puritan revolution to the 1930s, the author shows how class and sex, work and family, personal life and social pressures have shaped and hindered women's struggles for equality.
Review
'Women should be grateful for a book of this kind, which fills our inadequate record of the past' --Eva Figes, New Statesman 'An important and valuable achievement' New York Times 'Essential feminist history' --Feminist Bookstore News (US)
Synopsis
'An important and valuable achievement.' --New York Times ‘Groundbreaking ... One of the first books to make womens history available to a wide audience. --Guardian
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [170]-175) and index.
About the Author
Sheila Rowbotham is a University Fellow in the Sociology Department of Manchester University. Her recent books include Women in Movement (Routledge, 1992) and with Swasti Mitter, Dignity and Daily Bread (Routledge, 1993).
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Work, the family and the development of early capitalism
2. Puritans and prophetesses
3. The restoration
4. The new radicalism of the eighteenth century
5. The agricultural and industrial revolution
6. New means of resisting
7. Birth control and early nineteenth century radicalism
8. Feminism in the radical and early socialist movement
9. Middle-class women begin to organise
10. Feminism and rescue work
11. The position of working-class women in the ninete