Womanhoods and Equality in the United States

Christen Bryson is an associate professor of American Studies at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France. Her research deals primarily with the American family during the postwar era. She is interested in the ways in which the White, heterosexual, middle-class nuclear family represents traditional conceptions of American family life. Anne Légier is an associate professor of American Studies at Université Paris Cité, France. Her research focuses on the history of abortion and reproductive health in the United States, and the role played by progressive religious forces in the abortion debate. Amélie Ribieras is an associate professor of American Studies and Legal English at Université Paris 2-Panthéon-Assas, Paris, France. Her research focuses on antifeminism and conservative women in the United States in the 1960s-80s through the figure of Phyllis Schlafly and her STOP ERA movement.

Introduction Part I: Fashioning and Refashioning Womanhoods 1. Echoes of Womanhood: Listening to Women’s Voices on the Radio 2. Women’s Magazines and Fashion Magazines as (Re)Sources for (De)Constructing Womanhood: Working on Femininity, from Producers to Readers to Researchers 3. The Right to Be Beautiful: Annie Malone, Beauty Culture, and New Negro Womanhood Part II: Violence and Womanhood 4. The Paradox of Violent Women in the U.S. Antiabortion Movement 5. Gender-Based and State Violence from Central America to the U.S./Mexico Border: From Invisibility to Visibility 6. Title IX: Fighting Sexual Violence on U.S. College Campuses by Reframing it as Sex Discrimination Part III: Womanhood: Sites of Debate and Negotiation 7. “Just a Housewife”: Reassessing Feminist Portrayals of the American Housewife in the 1960s and 1970s 8. Legal Frames, Scientific “Expertise,” and Abortion Debates in the United States