Customer Reviews

Daring To Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975 (American Culture)

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Daring To Be Bad is an essential history of the Women's Liberation Movement. Daring is nuanced in that it connects this movement to other protest movements of the 60's while remaining true to the Women's Movement's distinctive arc.

If you want to understand the vexed racial politics of Women's Movement or the equality/difference divide, start with Daring. Echols has written an intellectually serious book that is also deliciously gossipy.

This is THE book about 60s Radical Feminism and also a really FUN read!

Alice Echols presents the reader with an excellent overview of the second wave of American feminism. The author situates the rise of the second wave with women's realization that they were being squeezed out of the cutting edge of both SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)and SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and the further understanding that the only way women's issues were going to be addressed was by starting their own movement. Echols covers both the grand successes and weaknesses of the movement. This includes the fairly rapid splintering of the movement into a multitude of groups based in part on the politico-radical feminist and heterosexual-lesbian splits. The author really shines during the description of the period and is very precise in her explanation of when and why the splintering happens. Additionally, the author's endnotes and appendices are extremely helpful in keeping the information about the main participants and groups straight for the reader. Overall this is the best book for those wanting to get a handle on the second wave.

I question anyone's using this book as a reference as it indicates they have not thoroughly read the book to see its sloppy scholarship.

For example, Ms. Echol's account of the start and history of New York Radical Feminists is based upon gossip interviews with members of only one of the 20-50 brigades/consciousness-raising groups. She reports conflicts those few members had with NYRF's founding members without obtaining interviews with the founding members themselves. Also from her inaccurate reports of the subsequent activities and end dates of New York Radical Feminists, it is apparent that Ms. Echols never read any NYRF newsletters, conference documents (the latter now available with a "radical feminism" search on [...]) or the like.

Her title is also inaccurate as I and most women I know became radical feminists because we wanted justice for women and all women I know had the support of their families who might have thought us "eccentric" but never "bad." Also radical feminists changed society's attitudes towards rape and child sex abuse. However, can we be called "bad?"

Not that great. I had to read for a college course. I would not read for pleasure.