No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism

by Nancy A. Hewitt, Marisela Châvez, Dorothy Cobble, Leela Fernandes

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813547251
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	01/29/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	472
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

NANCY A. HEWITT is a professor of history and women's and gender studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Her books include Women's Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822-1872; Southern Discomfort: Women's Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880-1920s; and A Companion to American Women's History.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction Nancy A. Hewitt 1

Part 1 Reframing Narratives/Reclaiming Histories

1 From Seneca Falls to Suffrage? Reimagining a "Master" Narrative in U.S. Women's History Nancy A. Hewitt 15

2 Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism Becky Thompson 39

3 Black Feminisms and Human Agency Ula Y. Taylor 61

4 "We Have a Long, Beautiful History": Chicana Feminist Trajectories and Legacies Marisela R. Ch?vez 77

5 Unsettling "Third Wave Feminism": Feminist Waves, Intersectionality, and Identity Politics in Retrospect Leela Fernandes 98

Part 2 Coming Together/Pulling Apart

6 Overthrowing the "Monopoly of the Pulpit": Race and the Rights of Church Women in the Nineteenth-Century United States Martha S. Jones 121

7 Labor Feminists and President Kennedy's Commission on Women Dorothy Sue Cobble 144

8 Expanding the Boundaries of the Women's Movement: Black Feminism and the Struggle for Welfare Rights Premilla Nadasen 168

9 Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Peace Activism and Women's Orientalism Judy Tzu-Chun Wu 193

10 Living a Feminist Lifestyle: The Intersection of Theory and Action in a Lesbian Feminist Collective Anne M. Valk 221

11 Strange Bedfellows: Building Feminist Coalitions around Sex Work in the 1970s Stephanie Gilmore 246

12 From Sisterhood to Girlie Culture: Closing the Great Divide between Second and Third Wave Cultural Agendas Leandra Zarnow 273

Part 3 Rethinking Agendas/Relocating Activism

13 Staking Claims to Independence: Jennie Collins, Aurora Phelps, and the Boston Working Women's League, 1865-1877 Lara Vapnek 305

14 "I Had Not Seen Women Like That Before": Intergenerational Feminism in New York City's Tenant Movement Roberta S. Gold 329

15 The Hidden History of Affirmative Action: Working Women's Struggles in the 1970s and the Gender of Class Nancy MacLean 356

16 U.S. Feminism-Grrrl Style! Youth (Sub)Cultures and the Technologies of the Third Wave Ednie Kaeh Garrison 379

17 "Under Construction": Identifying Foundations of Hip-Hop Feminism and Exploring Bridges between Black Second Wave and Hip-Hop Feminisms Whitney A. Peoples 403

Notes on Contributors 431

Index 435

Editorial Reviews

"From Seneca Falls to hip-hop, this striking collection pushes us to rethink the who, what, when, where, and why of U.S. feminist history. The wide-ranging essays toss out the overly tidy generational model and replace it with complex, rich, and inclusive accounts of our feminist past. Highly recommended."

author of How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States - Joanne Meyerowitz

"No Permanent Waves offers not only crucial information on the histories of feminism but also evidence for new historiographical claims about how feminism relates to itself across time, positionality, race, region, class, sexuality, occupation, and especially generation. Featuring a range of essays on manifestations of feminism and their relationships to time and generation, No Permanent Waves demonstrated the strength of attending to difference."

Signs

"As an intellectual enterprise the book successfully established the overlapping and intertwined configurations of feminist movements from the 1840s to the present. Hewitt's book is a compelling guide to contemporary interpretations of American feminisms. Its thought-provoking essays will be especially useful in classroom distussions about historical practice."

Journal of American History

"An important contribution to the ongoing dialogue on the meaning of feminism and its application not just within the academy, but also to a larger and more general political, social, and intellectual forum. Recommended."

Choice

"No Permanent Waves offers not only crucial information on the histories of feminism but also evidence for new historiographical claims about how feminism relates to itself across time, positionality, race, region, class, sexuality, occupation, and especially generation. Featuring a range of essays on manifestations of feminism and their relationships to time and generation, No Permanent Waves demonstrated the strength of attending to difference."

From the Publisher