Synopses & Reviews
American women fare worse than men on virtually every major dimension of social status, financial well-being, and physical safety. Sexual violence remains common, and reproductive rights are by no means secure. Women assume disproportionate burdens in the home and pay a heavy price in the workplace. Yet these issues are not political priorities. Nor is there a consensus that there still is a serious problem.
In What Women Want, Deborah L. Rhode, one of the nation's leading scholars on women and law, brings to the discussion a broad array of interdisciplinary research as well as interviews with heads of leading women's organizations. Is the women's movement stalled? What are the major obstacles it confronts? What are its key priorities and what strategies might advance them? In addressing those questions, the book explores virtually all of the major policy issues confronting women. Topics include employment and appearance discrimination, the gender gap in pay and leadership opportunities, work/family policies, childcare, divorce, same-sex marriage, sexual harassment, domestic violence, rape, trafficking, abortion, poverty, and political representation, all with a particular focus on the capacities and limits of law as a strategy for social change. Why, despite four decades of equal employment legislation, is women's workplace status so far from equal? Why, despite a quarter century's effort at reforming rape law, is America's rate of reported rape the second highest in the developed world? Part of the problem lies in the absence of political mobilization around such issues and the underrepresentation of women in public office.
In an age where many women are reluctant to identify as feminists, a broad-ranging, expert look at where American women are today is more necessary than ever. This path-breaking book explores how women can and should act on what they want.
Review
"What Women Want brings new insights to longstanding questions of gender inequality. One of the nation's preeminent experts on women and the law offers a compelling agenda for the women's movement. With elegant and engaging prose, Rhode tackles issues such as pay inequity, work/family conflicts, violence against women, and economic and reproductive justice. This book is essential reading for anyone who cares about equal opportunity for women." --Kim Gandy, National Organization for Women, President 2001-2009
"As she has done for decades, Deborah Rhode argues again persuasively that American women still face a grinding uphill battle. We are paid less, work harder, experience greater violence, report less violence, and lack crucial policies and services long-established in other developed countries. Passionately articulated, unsentimental and clear-eyed, Rhode proves that What Women Want -- whatever they may choose to call it -- is feminism."-Dahlia Lithwick, Supreme Court Correspondent, Slate
"If you have any doubt that gender inequality persists in today's world, you won't after reading this evocative, data-packed book. What Women Want is the most comprehensive account of gender inequality out there. But Rhode goes beyond describing the problem; she offers compelling advice for achieving a gender equitable society." --Shelley J. Correll, Director, Clayman Institute for Gender Research and Professor of Sociology, Stanford University
"Whenever I need the latest statistic or the perfect quote on an extraordinarily broad range of feminist issues, I reach for the latest Deborah Rhode book." --Joan C. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Hastings Foundation Chair, and Founding Director of the Center for WorkLife Law, UC Hastings College of the Law
"A thoroughly researched examination of the progress women in the United States have made toward gender equality and of the problems that still must be addressed."
--Kirkus Reviews
"[Rhode] presents clear agenda items for how legal remedies and improved corporate or government policies could foster progress. Rhode's ideas are well-articulated, specific, and reasonable." --Publishers Weekly
"[A] solid presentation of where the feminist movement is today (nowhere good) and offers practical agendas and legal reforms going forward . . . a very important book, indeed essential." --Jenny McPhee, Bookslut
"Rhode's book is a contemporary version of Susan Faludi's 1991 Backlash. Instead of giving us an account of the progress women have made toward social and political equality, it concentrates on all in our society that remains resistant to that progress." --Boston Review
Synopsis
What Women Want is a trenchant examination of the struggle for women's equality, and a prescription for what to focus on next in order to ensure maximum success. Feminism today is a movement that lacks leadership, unity, and definition, and it has gotten stuck in a boom and bust cycle when it comes to public opinion and action. Despite significant progress over the last fifty years, equality is still a distant goal in the political, social, and economic spheres. Only by identifying the barriers (both internal and external) that remain, Deborah Rhode argues, can we begin to identify solutions.
A rigorously researched and well-written answer to the glut of gender-related books that have come onto the market recently, What Women Want comprehensively analyzes the challenges the feminist movement faces today. Combining sharp academic analysis and interviews with notable figures such as Sheryl Sandberg, Rhode focuses on five main topics: employment issues such as pay discrimination, work-life balance and the government's pitiful response, the assault on women's reproductive rights and the limits it places on their economic mobility, sexual harassment and violence, and the detrimental effect that the unfashionable label feminist can have, especially in attracting young women to the movement. Despite these formidable obstacles, the goals and principles of feminism are widely accepted by the American mainstream, and Rhode, herself a pathbreaker in the fields of law and education, offers effective strategies for redefining and advancing the feminist agenda, thereby creating a movement that truly recognizes, and is responsive to, what all women want.
About the Author
Deborah L. Rhode is the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and Director of the Stanford Center on the Legal Profession. She graduated summa cum laude from Yale University, attended Yale Law School, and clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall. She is the former director of Stanford's Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Her books on women include
Justice and Gender, Speaking of Sex,
Gender and Law,
Women and Leadership, and
The Beauty Bias.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Women's Movement
Chapter 2 Employment
Chapter 3 Work and Family
Chapter 4 Sex and Marriage
Chapter 5 Reproductive Justice and Economic Security
Chapter 6 Sexual Abuse
Chapter 7 Appearance
Chapter 8 The Politics of Progress