American Woman: Doll, Laborer, Assistant, Hero

Author: Gail Collins (USA), translated by Bao Yongning and others
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Gail Collins' American Women has changed the face of American history and gender. The author discusses women from the colonial era, women fighting for suffrage in modern times, and modern. It is rare to see such a comprehensive, substantial, and engaging book. — Wendy Wasstein
This book is refreshing and I, like all sons, husbands, and fathers, once thought I understood women. After reading it, I realized I didn’t. Every page made me see this and made me regret not discovering it sooner. — Richard Reeves
Whether it’s a history of American women or a story of American women, we now have a perfect account. Gail Collins follows Eleanor Dare to Virginia and traces her journey to Betty Friedan’s march on Fifth Avenue in New York, pausing along the way to talk about suffrage, fashion, contraception, and corsets. It’s truly a good book. — Ellen Goodman
Gail Collins’ book is the best account of American women’s history to date. It is rich, engaging, humorous, profound, and full of historical insight. — Christine Stansbury
American Women tells a story spanning four hundred years. It features a series of powerful figures—from the women anxiously gazing out to sea from the deck of the Mayflower to the women who boldly fought against beauty pageants and the new market of. Their actions were sometimes brave, sometimes foolish, sometimes funny, and sometimes pitiful. But it is these women who shaped modern America and shaped the ideas of American women today. Gail Collins, a former editorial editor at The New York Times, selects the most compelling figures from the vast history of ordinary American women and elite women, depicting their lives, ambitions, views on marriage and relationships, gender dynamics, and work goals. The book begins with the wild Roanoke Island, where women came to the American South to marry, only to face astonishingly high mortality rates that sometimes led to remarriage after two or three deaths. The book then tells the stories and struggles of women: the Revolutionary War, westward expansion, the fight for suffrage, surviving the Great Depression, becoming "Rosie the Riveter," participating in the civil rights movement, and the rebellions of the 1970s. American Women also narrates the changes in American women’s lives brought about by fashion, medical advances, health standards, sexology theories, and social norms, and explores their evolving education, career, and political attitudes. While taking a broad perspective, Gail Collins has not forgotten that the corsets and uncomfortable shoes women wore were also important. In the introduction to the book, Gail Collins writes: "The history of American women is a history of the fight for freedom. While American women certainly resisted male oppression, what they fought for more earnestly was to correct the long-standing, chaotic, and almost universally held views of women’s roles—by men and women alike." The book contains several engaging stories, arranged chronologically to form a comprehensive picture of the experiences of American women. American Women is highly readable and remains a representative work of history.