FEARLESS WOMEN

Historical study of the complexities of feminism in America.

Cobbs, a professor of American history and author of The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers, highlights the lives of women, from the 18th century to the present, whom she calls “feminist patriots,” ascribing the term feminist broadly, to “people who fought for their own rights or those of others,” and patriot to mean someone “who has a love of country and a willingness to defend national values.” As she acknowledges, “some feminists were racists, just as some civil rights activists were sexists.” Her selections include the predictable—Susan B. Anthony, civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell, labor reformer Frances Perkins—and the surprising: Equal Rights Amendment opponent Phyllis Schlafly, for one, who, Cobbs concedes, “can be seen as a classic anti-feminist feminist.” In each chapter, organized chronologically, the author contrasts one woman who serves as “the face of feminism” with another who “experienced a dilemma to which reformers did not yet have solutions.” She also points out that “some of these problems exist to this day.” She pairs the outspoken Abigail Adams, for example, with her contemporary, Abigail Bailey, whose husband abused her, sexually preyed on servants, and raped their daughter. Bailey had little legal recourse to sue for divorce, but she eventually successfully defended herself and her children. Cobbs looks at abolitionist Angelina Grimké and Harriet Jacobs, a slave, who both responded to their society’s systemic violence. Mexican American activist Martha Cotera, who promoted the recognition of sexism, joins Yvonne Swan, who fought to claim self-defense for killing a rapist. Cobbs draws on memoirs to portray many of her lesser-known subjects, such as Muriel Siebert, who rose from being an underpaid financial analyst to becoming the first woman with a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. The right to compete, learn, lobby, vote, earn equal pay, obtain equal legal protection, and be assured of physical safety are among the issues the author examines through the lives of her brave protagonists.

A fresh, well-researched perspective on women’s history.