Inviting women's rebellion

Which is the real women's movement? The 1960s guerilla theater with feminists chanting "No more male legislators"? Or the political action committees of the 1970s distributing money to progressive candidates? Geraldine Ferraro and Diane Feinstein winning nomination to important political office in the 1980s? Or the crying, shouting, angry women of Mills College in 1990, protesting their school's decision to admit male undergraduates? According to Anne N. Costain, the movement's diversity and longevity have given it political strength--and have made it very difficult to define. In Inviting Women's Rebellion Costain examines the development of the women's movement from its appearance in the 1960s, through its formative years to its peak in the 1970s, and into its current decline. Political scientists have generally understood it as a traditional social movement one that gathered its constituents and mobilized its resources to fight for change--in part, against a government that was hostile or indifferent to women's rights. Costain argues instead for a "political process" interpretation that includes the federal government's role in facilitating the movement's success. In Costain's an