What Women Want: An Agenda for the Women's Movement

by Deborah L. Rhode

American women fare worse than men on virtually every major dimension of social status, financial well-being, and physical safety. Sexual violence remains common, and reproductive rights are by no means secure. Women assume disproportionate burdens in the home and pay a heavy price in the workplace. Yet these issues are not political priorities, and worse, there is a lack of consensus that there still is a serious problem, or at least one that women have any reason or capacity to address. This "no problem" problem helps explain why women fail to mobilize around issues that materially affect the quality of their lives. Why is this, why does it matter, and how can we best respond?
What Women Want focuses on the policy agenda for women. Deborah L. Rhode, one of the nation's leading scholars on women and law, brings to the discussion a broad array of interdisciplinary research as well as interviews with heads of leading women's organizations. Is the women's movement stalled? What are the major obstacles it confronts? What are its key priorities and what strategies might advance them? In addressing those questions, the book explores virtually all of the major policy issues confronting women. Topics include employment and appearance discrimination, the gender gap in pay and leadership opportunities, work/family policies, childcare, divorce, same-sex marriage, sexual harassment, domestic violence, rape, trafficking, abortion, poverty, and political representation. Discussion focuses on the capacities and limits of law as a strategy for social change. Why, despite four decades of enforcement of equal employment legislation, is women's workplace status so far from equal? Why, despite a quarter century's effort at reforming rape law, is America's rate of reported rape the second highest in the developed world? Part of the problem lies in the absence of political mobilization around such issues and the underrepresentation of women in public office.
In an age where many women are reluctant to identify as feminists, the "war on women" is a potent political weapon, and Lean In tops the bestseller list, a broad-ranging, expert look at where American women are today is more necessary than ever. This path-breaking book explores how women can and should act on what they want.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Womens

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Ted Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will have to mull over this fine work that is polemic but much more close
analysis. Political but more deeply cultural, this is very much an agenda for not merely superficial legislative change but consideration of extensive societal development.

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, thank you, I am a feminist. And in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision around the Hobby Lobby’s so-called “right” to deny its female employees the contraception of their choice via their health insurance, Rhode's manifesto could not be more timely. The book is not only right on the money politically, but it is scholarly, accessible, and written by a woman whose credentials cannot be questioned. Rhode is a Stanford law professor who clerked for Thurgood Marshall. She founded the school’s course on gender, but still sees plenty of room for improvement…everywhere. She’s right. Thanks to Net Galley for promoting this important book.

Rhode points out that in spite of the all-too-common mistaken perception that gender bias is a thing of the past, women constitute less than one half percent of the content in the average history textbook. Furthermore:

In virtually every major dimension of social status, financial
well-being, and physical safety, women still fare worse than
men. Sexual violence remains common, and reproductive
rights are by no means secure.

Women are still primarily responsible for child care, and they are still penalized for this on the job. Abortion providers are rare due to local laws and increased insurance premiums, courtesy of virtually unfettered terrorism against women’s health clinics. Wealthy women will always be able to terminate an unwanted pregnancy because they can travel, but the poor, who often have the most urgent need to exercise this choice, are stuck if they can’t get to a county or state where the service is available, and pay for attendant travel costs associated with other red-tape hurdles such as waiting periods.

The USA has the second-highest rate of reported rape in the world, and a quarter of all women experience violence from their intimate partner; a fifth are raped or experience attempted rape.

Are you listening?

Rhode carefully delineates every problem faced by women in the USA today, and she argues, blow by blow, citation by citation, what is needed. Women should be organizing. We aren’t, at least not in the numbers that we need to in order to bring about social change. In fact, this reviewer would suggest that we are losing ground, and it is because so many of us don’t show up to carry a sign, wear an armband, or carry a bullhorn.

The only weak place in Rhode's release, if there is one, has to do with women of color. Her analysis there is shallow. However, the other sections apply to all women, regardless of color or ethnicity. We all need respect in the workplace and parity with our male coworkers or colleagues in pay and advancement. We all need affordable–if not free–childcare. We all need reproductive freedom that is between ourselves and our doctors. And we all need to be able to speak up and be perceived as “assertive” rather than “aggressive”. We are not there yet.

This reviewer has twice marched in Washington DC for women’s right to reproductive freedom, and cannot believe that the Equal Rights Amendment is dead. What’s that about?

If you are female or care about someone who is, you should get this book. Rhode is crystal clear and absolutely correct; if women cannot be equal now, then when?

[S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5
Right at the beginning, and after reading just the first few pages, I noticed that this book involved some heavy research, which can be assessed by the number of references used, in each chapter, to corroborate the realities that the author is addressing. In fact, at the end of the book, the reader will be able to find 50+ pages of notes, referring to all the publications mentioned throughout the book. Being an academic publication, this is exactly what you expect.
Being an academic publication, the writing can, many times, be a bit dry and hard to read for hours on end. I surely felt the need to put the book down sometimes and intercalate it with other readings (non-academic), but it wasn’t exactly because the writing was dry, it was more due to the fact that the text is so fact heavy (and being fact heavy when the references are reliable will never be a bad trait). As for the writing itself, it is quite pleasant for a reference book. You won’t find many adjectives or adverbs, obviously, but the vocabulary used is fairly accessible and I’m sure this publication can be enjoyed in a non-academic environment (which was my case).
The author writes about a comprehensive array of issues (as you can read in the synopsis). There are 8 chapters:
1. The Women’s Movement
2. Employment
3. Work and Family
4. Sex and Marriage
5. Reproductive Justice and Economic Security
6. Sexual Abuse
7. Appearance
8. The Politics of Progress
Throughout the book, Deborah L. Rhode, intertwines facts and references with her own opinions, experiences and points of view of what needs to change or still fought for. This is where the academic comes as less of a tutor/teacher and more as a woman, an individual that experienced, to some extent, the realities she is portraying. To me, this renders Deborah L. Rhode much more real, and relatable (if you’re a female reader).
The only problem I add with the book was the fact that it addresses the reality of the United States, and only very scarcely it mentions the situation of the women’s movement outside that country. When it does, is mainly while comparing US data with other countries. I’d like to read more about other countries as well, to have a broader view on the addressed subjects. But at the same time, I guess it would be almost impossible to achieve such a humongous task in one book. It comes to the reader to do further research and look for other publications with a similar subject but focusing other female populations.
If you’re searching for a book that gives you a good general insight to what rights do women still need to fight for today, this is the book you’re looking for.
And if you’re a sceptic /conservative and you think that the gender gap (be it in terms of treatment, representation or rights) is a thing from the past, I’ll leave you with some quotes from the book:

[Concerning Sexual Harassment at the Workplace]One example involved a male worker who made a series of abusive comments to an African American employee, including the instruction to “suck my dick, you black bitch,” as he dropped his pants and held his genitals. The court granted summary judgment without trial in favor of the defendant. Although acknowledging that the man’s conduct was “deplorable and even offensive, humiliating, and threatening,” the trial judge concluded that it was not sufficiently “severe or pervasive to . . . create an abusive working environment.”21

(page 106, chapter 6: Sexual Abuse)

[Concerning Rape]In a television broadcast during the 2012 Missouri Senate campaign, candidate Todd Akin was asked whether abortion should be legal in cases of rape.
He responded: “It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”143 The comment immediately went viral, and was widely credited with costing him the election. What attracted national outrage was not simply Akin’s bizarre belief about reproductive biology, which was news to the 32,000 women who every year experience pregnancy following rape.144

(page 119-120, chapter 6: Sexual Abuse)

[Concerning violence against women and trivialization of abuse]Activists claimed that feminists “hyped” the idea that women need protection, which they characterized as “ideological tripe.”67 The suit failed, but the attitudes expressed reflect the culture’s frequent trivialization of domestic violence. Stores sell T-shirts with slogans such as “50,000 battered women and I still eat mine plain.” The 2013 National Rifle Association Convention featured a mannequin target called “The Ex” that simulates bleeding when someone shoots it.68

(pag. 111, chapter 6: Sexual abuse)

[Concerning what needs to change] More women need to be convinced that we cannot adequately improve the lot of women without challenging all the sources of subordination with which gender interacts. As Audre Lorde noted, “It is not our differences which separate women, but our reluctance to recognize those differences and deal effectively with the distortions which have resulted. . . .”80
(…)
To many Americans, the laws against sex discrimination and the presence of women in prominent positions look like evidence that the “woman problem” has been solved. This “no-problem” problem and the sense of complacency that it engenders have themselves become obstacles to broader change.

(page 158, chapter 8: The Politics of Progress)

[Stephanie C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great synthesis of the feminist agenda. A little too stats/facts, but very informative.

[Zé · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-researched eye opener of a book as it shows gender discrimination is still apparent until now, especially in the U.S. Women and men are always entitled to equal opportunities, and more women must be appointed in political roles to ensure women's rights are being implemented and maintained. The change must start now.

[Soha Bayoumi · Rating 3 out of 5]

True to its title, this book offers an exhaustive agenda for the women's movement. It covers most areas that feminists, from all walks of life, would agree need a lot more work for women to achieve gender equity. The book is very well-researched, with an abundance of statistics, figures and facts. Although the author is an academic and the book is published by an academic press, it remains very accessible to a wide audience and highly readable. Despite its thorough examination of what needs to be done by women and for women, the book is written with the white, middle-class, heterosexual and cisgender American woman in mind, discussing race and socioeconomic status to a large extent (but they usually feel as an add-on), homosexual women to a lesser extent, and transgender women to a negligible extent.

The book is written from the perspective of an avowed (and seemingly proud) second-wave feminist, who actually launches a critique against what she at one point calls "third-wave women." The author alludes that third-wave feminists have created a straw man, and that the target of their critiques is a "whitewashed caricature of their own making." She cites second-wave icons such as Gloria Steinem "who have often taken pains to share their podium with women of color" (!) and relates how Steinem, when faced with demands for feminists to be more inclusive, felt "like a sitting dog being told to sit." The author suggests that third-wave feminists are mostly individualistic women who are engaged in "narrative navel gazing" rather than in building an actual social movement. She blames third-wave feminists for being too focused on generational differences in a divisive manner. However, when she's confronted with requests to feminists from older generation to "pass on the torch, ladies," she approvingly cites feminists like Robin Morgan who quipped "speaking for myself, I'm hanging on to my torch, thank you. Get your own damn torch."

There's a significant amount of elitism and cultural imperialism in the book, symbolized by how the author decides to explain the choice of her book title: despite the fact that "women don't speak with one voice on women's issues ... we must be prepared to generalize about the interests of women as a group. We need to say something about what social theorists label 'enlightened preferences.' What would most women want if they were fully informed and free to choose?" The elitism of such a statement and the focus on the liberal myth of "enlightened preferences" are astounding! It is as though "enlightened" women set the standard for what gender equity or free choice means and are expected to legitimately enforce that standard on unenlightened women who are not fully informed, and whose preferences can be readily dismissed as not authentically representative of what they want.

The book sometimes makes contradictory claims, and the views of the author herself sometimes fail to effectively come through. For example, in the chapter on "appearance," the author laments the fact that Sarah Palin's makeup specialist was paid more than her foreign policy advisor during her 2007 vice-presidential campaign. In the following chapter on women's political participation and representation, the author laments how Sarah Palin "faced severe criticism over the cost of her wardrobe and her makeup expert." (!)

Finally, I understand that book titles are often determined through agreements with publishers that usually take into account factors related to marketability. However, I find the choice of the title for the book to play into the old trope of "what does woman want?" that, as Gayatri Spivak explained, reifies women as an object of investigation. Rather, the feminist inquiry requires posing women as the interrogating subject.

[Mills College Library]

305.42009 R4751 2014

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really 3.5 and higher for those who aren't immersed in this stuff on a daily basis. And 5 stars for the personal narrative at the beginning of the book.

[Samantha Hines · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the actionable items; it mitigated the depressing facts somewhat.