Astrid Henry

Eschewing the conventional wisdom that places the origins of the American women’s movement in the nostalgic glow of the late 1960s, Feminism Unfinished traces the beginnings of this seminal American social movement to the 1920s, in the process creating an expanded, historical narrative that dramatically rewrites a century of American women’s history. Also challenging the contemporary “lean-in,” trickle-down feminist philosophy and asserting that women’s histories all too often depoliticize politics, labor issues, and divergent economic circumstances, Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry demonstrate that the post-Suffrage women’s movement focused on exploitation of women in the workplace as well as on inherent sexual rights. The authors carefully revise our “wave” vision of feminism, which previously suggested that there were clear breaks and sharp divisions within these media-driven “waves.” Showing how history books have obscured the notable activism by working-class and minority women in the past, Feminism Unfinished provides a much-needed corrective.

Pour le r veillon du Nouvel an, Roxane et Victor Atlas ont invit onze de leurs amis pour une f te au ranch dans le Dakota du Nord. Roxane qui est actrice, est connue pour ses soir es exaltantes et les treize convives s'amusent et profitent du moment. Victor Atlas, qui est juge d'instance doit aller travailler sur un dossier dans son bureau qu'il a son domicile. Le lendemain matin il est retrouv mort sur sa chaise. Les invit s deviennent tous des suspects. Le duo de choc compos de Jude Mark et Maya Foster, charg de l'enqu te. Maya est tr s reconnue dans son travail, et Jude a des comp tences ind niables dans la recherche d'indices et leur analyse. Ils s'entendent bien et se taquinent continuellement. Tous les suspects vont tre interrog s. Leurs profils sont tr s diff rents et beaucoup ont un mobile pour le meurtre de leur soi-disant ami. Ce roman sous forme d'enqu te polici re nous donne voir une galerie de personnages hauts en couleur. Le suspense est au rendez-vous et les enqu teurs iront de fausses pistes en d couvertes jusqu' la r solution finale. Dans ce monde o la t l portation existe, les recherches et les interrogatoires sont complexes mener et le duo d'enqu teurs ne m nage pas son acharnement et ses d placements. De vieilles histoires de familles ressurgissent et des amourettes viennent troubler l'enqu te en cours. Quand les sentiments s'en m lent, rien ne va plus

"No matter how wise a mother's advice is, we listen to our peers." At least that's writer Naomi Wolf's take on the differences between her generation of feminists—the third wave—and the feminists who came before her and developed in the late '60s and '70s—the second wave. In Not My Mother's Sister, Astrid Henry agrees with Wolf that this has been the case with American feminism, but says there are problems inherent in drawing generational lines. Henry begins by examining texts written by women in the second wave, and illustrates how that generation identified with, yet also disassociated itself from, its feminist "foremothers." Younger feminists now claim the movement as their own by distancing themselves from the past. By focusing on feminism's debates about sexuality, they are able to reject the so-called victim feminism of Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin. Rejecting the orthodoxies of the second wave, younger feminists celebrate a woman's right to pleasure. Henry asserts, however, that by ignoring diverse older voices, the new generation has oversimplified generational conflict and has underestimated the contributions of earlier feminists to women's rights. They have focused on issues relating to personal identity at the expense of collective political action. Just as writers like Wolf, Katie Roiphe, and Rene Denfeld celebrate a "new" feminist (hetero)sexuality posited in generational terms, queer and lesbian feminists of the third wave similarly distance themselves from those who came before. Henry shows how 1970s lesbian feminism is represented in ways that are remarkably similar to the puritanical portrait of feminism offered by straight third-wavers. She concludes by examining the central role played by feminists of color in the development of third-wave feminism. Indeed, the term "third wave" itself was coined by Rebecca Walker, daughter of Alice Walker. Not My Mother's Sister is an important contribution to the exchange of ideas among feminists of all ages and persuasions.