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Tidal Wave : How Women Changed America at Century's End
The Distinguished McKnight University Professor of History at the University of Minnesota uses interviews, archival materials, and published sources to provide a history of women and feminism in the United States from 1960-2002.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published February 4, 2003
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109 people want to read
About the author
Sara M. Evans
10 books12 followersSara M. Evans is a distinguished scholar and Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Minnesota where she taught women's history since 1976. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 5, 2024
This is a well-written book, unfortunately, on a topic in which I am disinterested. Evans argued that “second wave” feminism was grounded on the claim that the personal is political. While the “first wave” was a civil rights movement to gain women the right to vote, the “second wave” morphed into a fractious pseudo-religion of competing factions and perpendicular agendas.
April 3, 2008
This is a history of second wave feminism from a decidedly second wave perspective.
As such, it was plagued by mainstream white second wave feminists' continued inability to be self-critical even while acknowledging the very significant cultural and political changes that they pushed through. The women's liberation movement made amazing progress: reproductive justice, women-owned business, athletics, education, electoral politics, the establishment of an anti-violence movement and rape crisis hotlines, domestic violence shelters, etc. etc. Evans documents all this pretty soundly.
What she doesn't do is incorporate any third wave analysis into her reflections. She gives tokenizing acknowledgment of the contributions of women of color to the movement, at times listing six or seven names without even going into what work these women were doing. When she did touch on the contributions of women of color, it was to name their calls to be heard divisive and "guilt-induicing." Instead of writing the history and experiences of women from the Black Panther Party, Evans focused on white women's reactions to (and fear of) "black militant women" who "'manage to completely cow white women'" and "'hold the cards on oppression.'" Quotes like this went by without comment from Evans.
Basically, this book did a good job listing the accomplishments of the women's liberation movement and demonstrating the extent of the 1980s backlash against it, but Evans failed to put the visibly dominant, white & wealthy mainstream movement into a context that acknowledges where it was insufficient and lacking and where others were creating their own movements, or participating in other ways-- a historiography which is by no means hard to come by in 2003.
As such, it was plagued by mainstream white second wave feminists' continued inability to be self-critical even while acknowledging the very significant cultural and political changes that they pushed through. The women's liberation movement made amazing progress: reproductive justice, women-owned business, athletics, education, electoral politics, the establishment of an anti-violence movement and rape crisis hotlines, domestic violence shelters, etc. etc. Evans documents all this pretty soundly.
What she doesn't do is incorporate any third wave analysis into her reflections. She gives tokenizing acknowledgment of the contributions of women of color to the movement, at times listing six or seven names without even going into what work these women were doing. When she did touch on the contributions of women of color, it was to name their calls to be heard divisive and "guilt-induicing." Instead of writing the history and experiences of women from the Black Panther Party, Evans focused on white women's reactions to (and fear of) "black militant women" who "'manage to completely cow white women'" and "'hold the cards on oppression.'" Quotes like this went by without comment from Evans.
Basically, this book did a good job listing the accomplishments of the women's liberation movement and demonstrating the extent of the 1980s backlash against it, but Evans failed to put the visibly dominant, white & wealthy mainstream movement into a context that acknowledges where it was insufficient and lacking and where others were creating their own movements, or participating in other ways-- a historiography which is by no means hard to come by in 2003.
August 4, 2025
A SURVEY OF THE MODERN WOMEN’S MOVEMENT
Evans is an emeritus professor of history at the University of Minnesota.
She wrote in the first chapter of this 2003 book, “The ‘first wave’ of women’s rights activism in the United States built slowly from its beginnings in the middle of the 19th century, finally cresting in 1920 with the passage of the nineteenth Amendment … guaranteeing women the most fundamental right of citizenship, the vote. It swelled… steadily, riding this single, symbolic issue. By contrast, a ‘second wave’… never focused on a single issue and sometimes seemed to be at war as much within itself as with patriarchy. Yet that storm produced a tidal wave of feminism that washed over the United States and changed it forever.” (Pg. 1)
She continues, “For the purposes of this book, it makes no sense to insist on a more precise definition of the term ‘feminist’; my focus in on the movement itself in all its diversity of ideas, constituencies, strategies, and organizations… Perhaps its most distinctive characteristic has been the challenge to the boundary between the ‘personal’ and the ‘political’ captured in an early slogan, ‘The Personal is Political.’ Under this banner, the movement politicized issues that had long been deemed outside the purview of ‘politics,’ including sexuality, domestic violence, and the exercise of authority within the family. It also confronted the ancient association of men and maleness with public life (politics and power) and women and femaleness with domesticity (personal life and subordination). The result was a far more radical challenge … than efforts simply to gain admission for women into the public world of civic and economic life… The result of this feminist challenge has been a political, legal, and cultural maelstrom that continues to this day.” (Pg. 3)
She notes that in the late 1960s, “professional women began to organize themselves. In academia, professors of sociology, history, political science, psychology, and modern languages organized caucuses to pressure their associations to set up formal committees on the status of women. Soon their example spread to fields in the natural sciences as well as the rest of humanities and the social sciences… Academic caucuses did not simply pressure for professional advancement: some went so far as to challenge the intellectual premises of their professions.” (Pg. 83)
She reports, “When Robin Morgan set out to promote ‘Sisterhood is Powerful’ in 1970, she was astonished to discover that the exhausting debates that consumed her in New York were fundamentally irrelevant to most of the groups springing up across the country. Indeed, in most cities the decentralized nature of the women’s liberation groups meant that schism was avoided for several years. By the early seventies, though, women’s liberation organizations across the country were wracked with tension over seemingly irreconcilable perspectives. After only 6 or 7 years, the women’s liberation movement had splintered.” (Pg. 108)
She recounts, “In the mid-1970s, the women’s movement seemed everywhere and ever-changing as the ‘do-everything’ ethos of women’s liberation surged across the landscape, rearranging everything in its path. Certainly by 1975, the speed of change meant that no one would ‘own’ this movement nor could anyone ignore it, whether they were thrilled or dismayed. Many early activists mourned the fact that the movement as they had known it in the first 5 years was no longer recognizable, and they did not always understand that it had moved into a new era of institution and theory building.” (Pg. 128)
She explains, “The breadth of the women’s movement and the mainstreaming of what had been extremely marginal issues only a decade before became visible in 1977 at the massive International Women’s Year Conference in Houston, Texas… The Houston conference, consisting of about 2,000 delegates and 18,000 additional observers, made clear that the women’s movement had spread well beyond its original white, middle-class base: 35% of the delegates were nonwhite and nearly one in five was low-income.” (Pg. 139-140)
She recounts, “‘The Furies’ were only one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of lesbian communes, many of which persisted through the seventies and into the eighties. In such environments, talk of women’s culture seemed natural, linked to a separatist vision of economic as well as cultural independence. When the Furies broke up in 1972, its members took the quest for female self-sufficiency in new directions. Having given up the view that they could withdraw into an entirely female world, they nonetheless set out to establish women’s businesses and outlets for women’s artistic expressions. One such company was Olivia Records, founded in 1973 by five women… Other Furies were involved in founding Women in Distribution, Diana Press, Moonforce Media… and Sagaris Institute.” (Pg. 147-148)
She notes that “[Christina Hoff] Sommers, [Camille] Paglia, and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese tore into the women’s movement for its individualism (Fox-Genovese), puritanism (Paglia) and rage (Sommers) with books like ‘Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women.’ For all their differences, they shared a sharp edge of personal grievance toward what they viewed as a feminist establishment. Each had been embroiled in battles with other feminist scholars… It is ironic that they describe an all-powerful cultlike Mafia of feminist scholars when the experience of many students in the 1980s was that their faculty were too worried about being successful in academia to be activists.” (Pg. 220)
She concludes, “the international movement shifted leadership from Western feminists to women in the developing world and international women’s nongovernmental organizations. As a result women have been central to the initiation of a global civic infrastructure that holds the potential for public problem solving in a world fraught with environmental devastation, murderous violence, and extreme disparities between the wealthy and the poor. American women will continue to play a critical role in that struggle, knowing that massive change is possible but there is no end in sight.” (Pg. 238)
This book will be of some interest to those seeking an overview of the women’s movement.
Evans is an emeritus professor of history at the University of Minnesota.
She wrote in the first chapter of this 2003 book, “The ‘first wave’ of women’s rights activism in the United States built slowly from its beginnings in the middle of the 19th century, finally cresting in 1920 with the passage of the nineteenth Amendment … guaranteeing women the most fundamental right of citizenship, the vote. It swelled… steadily, riding this single, symbolic issue. By contrast, a ‘second wave’… never focused on a single issue and sometimes seemed to be at war as much within itself as with patriarchy. Yet that storm produced a tidal wave of feminism that washed over the United States and changed it forever.” (Pg. 1)
She continues, “For the purposes of this book, it makes no sense to insist on a more precise definition of the term ‘feminist’; my focus in on the movement itself in all its diversity of ideas, constituencies, strategies, and organizations… Perhaps its most distinctive characteristic has been the challenge to the boundary between the ‘personal’ and the ‘political’ captured in an early slogan, ‘The Personal is Political.’ Under this banner, the movement politicized issues that had long been deemed outside the purview of ‘politics,’ including sexuality, domestic violence, and the exercise of authority within the family. It also confronted the ancient association of men and maleness with public life (politics and power) and women and femaleness with domesticity (personal life and subordination). The result was a far more radical challenge … than efforts simply to gain admission for women into the public world of civic and economic life… The result of this feminist challenge has been a political, legal, and cultural maelstrom that continues to this day.” (Pg. 3)
She notes that in the late 1960s, “professional women began to organize themselves. In academia, professors of sociology, history, political science, psychology, and modern languages organized caucuses to pressure their associations to set up formal committees on the status of women. Soon their example spread to fields in the natural sciences as well as the rest of humanities and the social sciences… Academic caucuses did not simply pressure for professional advancement: some went so far as to challenge the intellectual premises of their professions.” (Pg. 83)
She reports, “When Robin Morgan set out to promote ‘Sisterhood is Powerful’ in 1970, she was astonished to discover that the exhausting debates that consumed her in New York were fundamentally irrelevant to most of the groups springing up across the country. Indeed, in most cities the decentralized nature of the women’s liberation groups meant that schism was avoided for several years. By the early seventies, though, women’s liberation organizations across the country were wracked with tension over seemingly irreconcilable perspectives. After only 6 or 7 years, the women’s liberation movement had splintered.” (Pg. 108)
She recounts, “In the mid-1970s, the women’s movement seemed everywhere and ever-changing as the ‘do-everything’ ethos of women’s liberation surged across the landscape, rearranging everything in its path. Certainly by 1975, the speed of change meant that no one would ‘own’ this movement nor could anyone ignore it, whether they were thrilled or dismayed. Many early activists mourned the fact that the movement as they had known it in the first 5 years was no longer recognizable, and they did not always understand that it had moved into a new era of institution and theory building.” (Pg. 128)
She explains, “The breadth of the women’s movement and the mainstreaming of what had been extremely marginal issues only a decade before became visible in 1977 at the massive International Women’s Year Conference in Houston, Texas… The Houston conference, consisting of about 2,000 delegates and 18,000 additional observers, made clear that the women’s movement had spread well beyond its original white, middle-class base: 35% of the delegates were nonwhite and nearly one in five was low-income.” (Pg. 139-140)
She recounts, “‘The Furies’ were only one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of lesbian communes, many of which persisted through the seventies and into the eighties. In such environments, talk of women’s culture seemed natural, linked to a separatist vision of economic as well as cultural independence. When the Furies broke up in 1972, its members took the quest for female self-sufficiency in new directions. Having given up the view that they could withdraw into an entirely female world, they nonetheless set out to establish women’s businesses and outlets for women’s artistic expressions. One such company was Olivia Records, founded in 1973 by five women… Other Furies were involved in founding Women in Distribution, Diana Press, Moonforce Media… and Sagaris Institute.” (Pg. 147-148)
She notes that “[Christina Hoff] Sommers, [Camille] Paglia, and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese tore into the women’s movement for its individualism (Fox-Genovese), puritanism (Paglia) and rage (Sommers) with books like ‘Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women.’ For all their differences, they shared a sharp edge of personal grievance toward what they viewed as a feminist establishment. Each had been embroiled in battles with other feminist scholars… It is ironic that they describe an all-powerful cultlike Mafia of feminist scholars when the experience of many students in the 1980s was that their faculty were too worried about being successful in academia to be activists.” (Pg. 220)
She concludes, “the international movement shifted leadership from Western feminists to women in the developing world and international women’s nongovernmental organizations. As a result women have been central to the initiation of a global civic infrastructure that holds the potential for public problem solving in a world fraught with environmental devastation, murderous violence, and extreme disparities between the wealthy and the poor. American women will continue to play a critical role in that struggle, knowing that massive change is possible but there is no end in sight.” (Pg. 238)
This book will be of some interest to those seeking an overview of the women’s movement.
April 23, 2009
sparked my interest and a great jumping off point to learn more. althought attempting to deal with diversity and racial strife within the movement on almost every page, there is an aspect of protectionism -- that every charge and criticism of the movement as racist -- didn't understand the well-intentioned white women who just didn't know better. it seems self-serving and unlikely to me.
clearly, racism and its counterpart of inclusion were complicated, and were depicted as such, but there is such a strong belief in the movement as a multiplicity of ideas and people and such a love for it, within the narrative, that criticism in general seemed half-hearted.
overall, a great starting point to learning about the second wave. and maybe even the third wave.
clearly, racism and its counterpart of inclusion were complicated, and were depicted as such, but there is such a strong belief in the movement as a multiplicity of ideas and people and such a love for it, within the narrative, that criticism in general seemed half-hearted.
overall, a great starting point to learning about the second wave. and maybe even the third wave.
May 20, 2008
Although written more for readers with some background in 20th-century U.S. women's history, a fascinating and in-depth look at second-wave feminism and the emergence of the third wave.
January 25, 2018
A good, thorough recap of the 60s, 70s, and 80s of feminism.
Read
April 18, 2022Read for my American Radical Tradition Course.
March 22, 2024
Good for a general overview of the time, but an understanding of the developments of the movement at the time is really hampered by her middle of the road liberalism.
June 19, 2025
(4.5) fascinating, thorough, and easy to read. i liveeee
March 17, 2012
It was a bit of work to get throug this book, simply because it was full of history, details, names and examples. At points, I felt like I could have just been reading a bullet point list of major events on a particular issue, but it was worth the read. and It makes a great starting point for an overview of feminism from the 60s and beyond in the US, as well as constantly touching on the complexlity of the movement and the ongoing struggles.
July 8, 2011
Informative
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews