The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America [Paperback]

Ruth Rosen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0670814628 | ISBN-13: 978-0670814626

Some revolutions are hard to recognize: no cataclysms mark their beginnings or ends, no casualties are left lying in pools of blood. Though people may suffer, their pain is hidden from public view. Such was the case with the modern women's movement.

In her extraordinary new work, Ruth Rosen takes the reader on an unforgettable journey through the last half of the twentieth century, charting the accomplishments and failures of a movement that transformed our politics, our culture, and our lives. The World Split Open evokes a "you are there" sense of the past. Suddenly, the years roll back, and the reader experiences the stigma faced by early pioneers, the heady nights of sexual adventure, the angry days of protest, the early euphoria of sisterhood, the bitter pain of betrayal. Here are the famous and unknown women whose collective outrage, indignant protests, zany humor, and gritty determination forced Americans to rethink what kind of society we would want-if women really mattered.

The World Split Open debunks media-generated myths and surprises the reader with stories from a freshly excavated past. Feminists never burned their bras but were haunted by aprons; African American women supported the movement more than their white counterparts; the FBI hired hundreds of women to infiltrate the women's movement; and, despite the media's repeated announcement of the death of the women's movement, feminism actually proliferated and burrowed deeply into American culture.

Weaving together ten years of archival research and interviews, Rosen turns the complicated history of the women's movement into a compelling and coherent narrative. Written with vigor and grace, she has created the balanced, meticulously documented, and evocative history that we expect from a distinguished scholar and activist. With uncompromising integrity, The World Split Open challenges us to understand how the women's movement has forever altered our lives and why the revolution is far from over. This is extraordinary achievement and long awaited history will attract men and women, entice educators and students, beguile movement veterans, and captivate those who came of age in the wake of this revolution.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For anyone who wants a thorough introduction to the modern American women's movement, this is it: a rousing story of the revolution by a history professor who participated in its struggles. Ruth Rosen introduces her book by reminding readers of discriminatory practices that were common in pre-1960s America: "Harvard's Lamont Library was off-limits to women for fear they would distract male students. Newspaper ads separated jobs by sex; bars often refused to serve women; some states even excluded women from jury duty; no women ran big corporations or universities, worked as firefighters or police officers." She then proceeds to delineate the changes that make such discrimination seem unthinkable today. Her research takes in popular books, magazines, newspaper articles and television, the details of politics and law, and the individual liberation stories of not only famous feminists and thinkers but many lesser-known women as well.

By the end of the 1970s, there are not only legal abortions, Title IX, and more women than men at American universities but letters like the following submitted to Ms. magazine: "One day last week, I pulled up to a four-way stop in my taxi," writes Jill Wood. "At one of the stop signs sat a police officer in a cruiser, and at the third, a telephone installer in a van. What made the occasion memorable was the fact that all three of us were women. We celebrated with much joyful laughter." Yet, says Rosen, this is only the beginning of the struggle for human rights. The World Split Open should serve to galvanize the energies of a new generation of women and men. --Maria Dolan

From Publishers Weekly

Highlighting the dramatic changes in culture and attitudes brought about by the women's movement in the 1960s and '70s, Rosen details the rebirth of feminism, from the liberalism of NOW through women's liberation, which grew out of the civil rights movement. Her focus is on the "hidden injuries of sex" and how what had been construed as "personal" problems--abortion, compulsory heterosexuality, rape and sexual violence, prostitution and pornography--became political issues. She also sketches the political splits and crises--such as the Redstockings' attack on Gloria Steinem and FBI infiltration--that wrought havoc in the movement as the backlash against legal abortion and the ERA was gathering steam. Finally, Rosen outlines how, even as feminism was proliferating throughout the country among such groups as older women and trade union women and in educational and religious institutions, it was also becoming diluted by what she terms consumer feminism (selling goods and services to promote liberation) and therapeutic feminism, which turned the political back into the personal. A history professor at the University of California-Davis, Rosen often focuses on groups sometimes left out of other accounts, like women who grew up in left-wing homes in the 1940s and '50s and women of color. Because her narrative moves decade by decade, some subjects, like abortion, are presented in a scattered manner. But the clear chronology and extensive bibliography make this volume an excellent teaching tool that is accessible and broad enough to appeal to general readers as well. Agent, Sandra Dijkstra. (Feb.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (February 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670814628
• ISBN-13: 978-0670814626
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #832,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Changed American Male Reports a MUST READ!, February 7, 2000

By 

Tom Morson (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America (Paperback)

Rosen, a historian, professor, activist and journalist brings the wisdoms of her personal and professional experiences to bear upon the modern Women's Movement. The result is a refreshing, candid, almost conversational accounting and chronicle, as well as an astute and careful analysis of the many impacts and consequences of the movement for American life. The numerous interviews with both known and unknown leaders of the movement are captured with such precision that at times you feel you are there. When Rosen then moves toward grounding these voices in the larger social-cultural-political contexts of the times, we begin to really experience the extent and depth of the Movement not only for American life but for life as we know it.

This is a must read for anyone wanting to better understand not only the modern Women's Movement, but themselves. As a psychotherapist, educator and social worker at the University of Michigan, I work daily with those struggling with their roles and identities. I think this is an excellent resource for helping women (and men) understand their personal struggles in context, which as Rosen's title so aptly puts it, makes "The World Split Open", and thus the personal truly political.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Real Achievement, September 16, 2000

By 

Okie Prof (Tulsa, OK USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America (Paperback)

Finally, we have a book to make the women's movement make sense for those too young, too unaware, or too biased to appreciate its enormous impact on America. Rosen's style is approachable without losing its analytical rigor. Her research brilliantly documents the movement's factions, "leaders," victories, failures,and issues. While _Split Open_ is a tour-de-force through the 1970s, I found its treatment of the anti-feminist backlash too superficial - although, unlike one reviewer here, I would not chracterize this as bias, so much as a decision to remain focused on the movement rather than its detractors.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Reality of Women's and Other Movements for Change, March 11, 2000

By 

Celeste L. MacLeod (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America (Paperback)

The myth is that the American women's movement was the domain of upper-echelon white women who wanted it all--exciting sex, prestigious careers, brilliant children they didn't have to take care of--and that working women, especially those of color, rejected it as irrelelvant to their lives. In fact, as Ruth Rosen's excellent book shows, women from many walks of life took part in a multi-faceted movement that has brought remarkable changes and helped all women.

This book about women also describes the sweep of US social movements, including civil rights, over the past 50 years. I found the chapters tracing the rise and fall of the New Left in the 1960s fascinating. It's well known that women who went south to help with voter-registration drives were put down by their male co-workers. Less known is the influence on them of black women activists they met there. Seeing "the remarkable clout black women wielded in their churches and civic organizations," white women later used them as role models for grassroots organizing in northern cities. In Students for a Democratic Society, men wrote theoretical papers on how to revamp society and women mimeographed them--and ran the offices, gaining administrative skills. By 1969, says Rosen, the New Left "was in tatters" while the women's movement took off in the 1970s--and is still going strong.

"The World Split Open" gives a comprehensive view of the women's movement, filling in important events that the media ignored in favor of the sensational. For people in other countries, it also provides a well-researched, readable account of American movements for social justice over the past half-century, centered around the experiences of women. This is a book to read now, and keep on your referrence shelf.