America's Women: 400 years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines
By Gail Collins
Abridged Selections read by Jane Alexander
Copyright 2003
Rarely do I listen to an audiobook and then decide I want the print edition, but that is certainly the case for this volume.
America's Women is a wonderful synopsis of the struggles of women as well as an explanation of where we are today. I am left inspired and amazed.
Women died for the rights that females in this new millennium take for granted. They marched in the streets, they were force-fed to halt hunger strikes, they wrote books, and in Eleanor Roosevelt's case, married well and then subtly ran the country.
The narrative of this book danced with energy as I listened, awed, open-mouthed, and horrified, to the stories of the women of this nation. From Harriet Beecher Stowe to Sojourner Truth to bra-burning, this book was a total delight.
The information appears to have stopped at the year 2000 and I couldn't help but wonder who are the female leaders of today. Sadly I see no Betty Friedans, no Eleanor Roosevelts, and certainly no Sojourner Truths. In the age of such dissected information, when people camp out in certain corners with their own realities and truths and have minds as closed as clam shells, would any woman ever move to the forefront as these ancestors did?
The author, Gail Collins, is a woman of note in her own right. She is a New York Times columnist and I am sorry I am not overly familiar with her other work, though I certainly must have read it.
I plan to purchase this book and keep it on my bookshelf for the rest of my life. She has written another volume called When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present and I will definitely be looking for that book as well.
That sounds interesting! I'll have to read it.
ReplyDeleteI just became familiar with Gail Collins too. I think I linked to something she wrote recently but can't remember the details now.
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