Moving the Mountain: The Women's Movement in America Since 1960

From Publishers Weekly
Deliberately short on feminist theory and free of rhetoric, this balanced, gripping, inspirational chronicle of the contemporary women's movement in the U.S. should be a standard resource for years to come. Davis, who has taught journalism at Manhattan's New School for Social Research, tells how activists "virtually reinvented feminism" in the 1960s, fueled by dozens of small women's groups that had survived since the suffragette "first wave" of the early part of the century. She explains how the struggle to ratify the ERA touched off a movement of its own, and how the reproductive rights movement in the '70s brought together NOW, new single-issue groups and older organizations like Planned Parenthood. She investigates media stereotyping and the right-wing backlash bolstered by white males' resentment at the challenges from feminists and from the civil rights movement. Davis suggests that, despite its setbacks, the women's movement of the 1990s is more deeply rooted and more diverse than ever before. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This is an unbiased, finely detailed account of the second wave of the women's movement in America. Rarely is history so emotionally compelling as in Davis's depiction of the struggles and anger of these activist women. In part one, she chronicles the birth, submersion, and eventual rebirth of feminism; she then examines in part two such issues as women in politics, the women's health movement, and lesbian feminism. In the last section, she discusses where the current movement is and where it is going. Davis interviewed many activist women for this book, but a lengthy bibliography and thorough footnoting indicate scholarly attention to the subject. Another history of the contemporary women's movement is Leila J. Rupp and Verta Taylor's Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women's Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s ( LJ 5/15/87), but it focuses on the postwar era. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries. (Index not seen.) See also Susan Faludi's Backlash ( LJ 9/15/91) and Paula Kamen's Feminist Fatale ( LJ 9/15/91).--Ed.- Cindy Faries, Pennsylvania State Univ. Lib., University ParkCopyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Susan Faludi's Backlash (p. 1133) and Paula Kamen's Feminist Fatale (p. 1137) sounded the alarm: Feminism in America is in trouble. Now Davis (Living Alive!, 1980, etc.) offers a calmer, more optimistic historical perspective in which feminism never died but only dispersed and lost momentum for a while. The women's movement is dead, the media proclaimed in the 1980's (a myth perpetrated by the New Right, according to Faludi, and through the fault of older feminists, according to Kamen). Here, Davis offers the facts: that feminism, like other civil- rights movements, has always made progress in waves, between which there have been periods of regression; that, historically, feminism has been hindered by the conflict between ``equality'' feminism and ``a kind of separate-but-equal movement''; that, though the feminist movement became less visible after the defeat of the ERA in the 70's, it in fact dispersed into myriad submovements, including the fight for equality for women of color, the women's health-care movement, the lesbian movement, and so on. Historically, such diversity is not a bad idea, Davis maintains. Factions that clash within one large group, rendering it ineffective (e.g., the conflict within NOW between white middle- class women and women of color), can often make progress separately, banding together in coalitions for individual causes. Such banding, Davis says, is now occurring on a global scale--a movement, along with the younger generation's gradual awakening to feminist issues through abortion rights, date rape, and other personally involving experiences, that may well prove to be even more successful in the upcoming ``third wave.'' In any case, the progress made in the 1970's was phenomenal, and younger feminists have a firmer base from which to crusade for fairer treatment and a more comprehensive awareness of all women's needs. Davis's levelheaded analysis of how and why some feminist efforts succeed and some fail should provide an invaluable source of information and inspiration for many. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


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This is an unbiased, finely detailed account of the second wave of the women's movement in America. Rarely is history so emotionally compelling as in Davis's depiction of the struggles and anger of these activist women. In part one, she chronicles the birth, submersion, and eventual rebirth of feminism; she then examines in part two such issues as women in politics, the women's health movement, and lesbian feminism. In the last section, she discusses where the current movement is and where it is going. Davis interviewed many activist women for this book, but a lengthy bibliography and thorough footnoting indicate scholarly attention to the subject. Another history of the contemporary women's movement is Leila J. Rupp and Verta Taylor's Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women's Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s ( LJ 5/15/87), but it focuses on the postwar era. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries. (Index not seen.) See also Susan Faludi's Backlash ( LJ 9/15/91) and Paula Kamen's Feminist Fatale ( LJ 9/15/91).--Ed.-- Cindy Faries, Pennsylvania State Univ. Lib., University Park


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