Women’s Studies

These two books share the theme of the struggle for women’s rights but little else. Century of Struggle (a minimally revised edition of the 1959 classic) surveys the first wave of the movement from 1820-1920; What Women Want emphasizes the second wave from 1959-73. There also are important differences in perspective. Yates focuses on movement ideologies, Flexner on events, people, and the way these coalesce into issues. Yates examines the ideas of declared feminists, Flexner the significant contributions of the declared and the undeclared. An interesting example of the latter is Flexner’s treatment of the founding of the first black women’s school in 1833 by Prudence Crandall in Canterbury, Connecticut...