Conduct Books and the History of the Ideal Woman

by Tabitha Kenlon

The longest-running war is the battle over how women should behave. "Conduct Books and the History of the Ideal Woman" examines six centuries of advice literature, analyzing the print origins of gendered expectations that continue to inform our thinking about women's roles and abilities. Close readings of numerous conduct manuals from Britain and America, written by men and women, explain and contextualize the legacy of sexism as represented in prescriptive writing for women from 1372 to the present.

This book presents a unique trans-historical approach, arguing that conduct manuals were influenced by their predecessors and in turn shaped their descendants. While existing period-specific studies of conduct manuals consider advice literature within the society that wrote and read them, this book provides the only analysis of both the volumes themselves and the larger debates taking place within their pages across the centuries. Building on critical conversations about literature's efforts to define and construct gender roles, this book examines conduct manuals' contributions to the female ideal prevalent when they were published, as well as the persistence or alteration of that ideal in subsequent eras.

Combining textual literary analysis with a social history sensibility while remaining accessible to expert and novice, this book will help readers understand the on-going debate about the often-contradictory guidelines for female behavior.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

250 pages, ebook

Published March 31, 2020

Reviews

[Victoria Zigler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting look at conduct books, the history of how mankind has viewed the ideal woman through the centuries, and what has and hasn't changed over time. It's clearly well-researched, and the author has an excellent writing style that makes it easy to read, which I'm sure would have had me enjoying it more were it not for the fact I only have a mild interest in the topic.

[Elle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kenlon would have done much better to focus on a specific period of time and deepen her analysis. The thesis of the work seems to be largely that conduct books written for women were sexist. She does a poor job of what the very title claims to do—detailing the history of the ideal woman. There’s little specificity or analysis. She simply pulls quotations from various popular conduct books, briefly describes arguments, and concludes with a commentary about how sexist it was. Surely in the 21st century we can do better than that. The style of writing is also simplistic. Colossal waste of $29 for an ebook.