The Century of Women: How Women Have Transformed the World since 1900

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Description

This innovative text explores the unprecedented changes in the realms of politics, demography, economics, culture, knowledge, and kinship that women have brought about in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Global in reach, the book provides a comparative analysis of developments worldwide to show both progress as well as new tensions and forms of inequality that have emerged out of womens entry into politics, wage employment, education, and the production of culture. Beginning with suffrage and moving to participation in international movementssuch as anti-war, labor, and environmental rights activismMaria Bucur explores how women have transformed the operation of states and international institutions. She focuses on the radical demographic shifts since 1900 through the prism of changing practices in womens sexuality, from birth control practices to education. Examining the continuing economic gender gap around the world, Bucur highlights ways women have been both beneficiaries of new economic opportunities and participants in developing new forms of inequality. Considering the remarkable achievements of women in the areas of knowledge making and cultural production, the author shifts her gaze toward the future and what these changes mean in terms of gender norms and evolving kinship relations. She thus presents a new perspective on contemporary world history, centered on how women have become both the subjects and objects of seismic shifts in the political, social, and economic structures of societies across the globe.

Reviews

. . . . an impressive and concise piece of work that will prove useful to researchers and accessible to students studying gender in the twentieth century and beyond. Bucurs narrative is simple but subversive: women are everywhere in history and our impact on the world is undeniable. * European History Quarterly *
Maria Bucurs brilliant book not only challenges the masculine bias in popular history, it provides an essential international perspective on one of the most significant of social revolutions of our time: the global womens movement. Her informed and uplifting work should be required reading for anyone disheartened by the growth of contemporary misogyny. Bucur reminds us that things can change despite the resistance of the most reactionary political opponents. -- Kristen R. Ghodsee, University of Pennsylvania
Maria Bucurs bold, brave, broad-ranging, subversively feminist yet inevitably selective world history of womens agency from 1900 to the present will provoke discussion and debate. This woman-focused interpretation should find a place on every intelligent persons reading list. -- Karen Offen, Stanford University
The Century of Women is an energetic and fact-filled survey showing in detail women's many accomplishments over these decades but also presenting solid evidence of the many wrongs still to be righted. -- Bonnie Smith, Rutgers University
Encyclopedic in scope and bold in its conception, The Century of Women sets out to show that the changes of the twentieth century can be fully grasped only by analyzing how women have been both the subject and object of these major shifts, from an unprecedented set of new rights to new cultural norms, and overall greater agency as a category of humans. The Century of Women succeeds admirably. It is a book every woman will want to read. Indeed, it is a book whose time has come! -- Sonya Michel, University of Maryland, College Park

Author Bio

Maria Bucuris John V. Hill Professor of History and Gender Studies at Indiana University Bloomington.