A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice An illuminating group portrait of the eighteenth-century women who dared to imagine an active life for themselves in both mind and spirit. In England in the 1700s, a woman who was an intellectual, spoke out, or wrote professionally was considered unnatural. After all, as the wisdom of the era dictated, a clever woman—if there were such a thing—would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did something extraordinary: coming together in glittering salons to discuss and debate as intellectual equals with men, they fought for women to be educated and to have a public role in society. In this intimate and revelatory history, Susannah Gibson delves into the lives of these pioneering women. Elizabeth Montagu established one of the most famous salons of the Bluestocking movement, with everyone from royalty to revolutionaries clamoring for an invitation to attend. Her younger sister, Sarah Scott, imagined a female-run society and created a women’s commune. Meanwhile, Hester Thrale, who also had a salon, saved her husband’s brewery from bankruptcy and, after being widowed, married a man she loved—Italian, Catholic, and not of her social class. Other women made a name for themselves through their publications, including Catharine Macaulay, author of an eight-volume history of England, and Frances Burney, author of the audacious novel Evelina. In elegant prose, Gibson reveals the close and complicated relationships between these women, how they supported and admired each other, and how they sometimes judged and exploited one another. Some rebelled quietly, while others defied propriety with adventurous and scandalous lives. With moving stories and keen insight, The Bluestockings uncovers how a group of remarkable women slowly built up an eviscerating critique of their male-dominated world that society was not yet ready to hear.

The Bluestockings of Japan introduces English-language readers to a formative chapter in the history of Japanese feminism by presenting for the first time in English translation a collection of writings from Seitō (Bluestockings), the famed New Women's journal of the 1910s. Launched in 1911 as a venue for women's literary expression and replete with poetry, essays, plays, and stories, Seitō soon earned the disapproval of civic leaders, educators, and even prominent women's rights advocates. Journalists joined these leaders in ridiculing the Bluestockings as self-indulgent, literature-loving, sake-drinking, cigarette-smoking tarts who toyed with men. Yet many young women and men delighted in the Bluestockings' rebellious stance and paid serious attention to their exploration of the Woman Question, their calls for women's independence, and their debates on women's work, sexuality, and identity. Hundreds read the journal and many women felt inspired to contribute their own essays and stories. The seventeen Seitō pieces collected here represent some of the journal's most controversial writing; four of these publications provoked either a strong reprimand or an outright ban on an entire issue by government censors. All consider topics important in debates on feminism to this day such as sexual harassment, abortion, romantic love and sexuality, motherhood, and the meaning of gender equality. The Bluestockings of Japan shows that as much as these writers longed to be New Women immersed in the world of art and philosophy, they were also real women who had to negotiate careers, motherhood, romantic relationships, and an unexpected notoriety. Their stories, essays, and poetry document that journey, highlighting the diversity among these New Women and displaying the vitality of feminist thinking in Japan in the 1910s.

The incredible story of the fight for female education in Britain In 1869, when five women enrolled at university for the first time in British history, the average female brain was thought to be 150 grams lighter than a man's. When the Cambridge Senate held a vote on whether women students should be allowed official membership of the university, there was a full-scale riot. Despite the prejudice and the terrible sacrifices they faced, women from all backgrounds persevered and paved the way for the generations who have followed them since. Bluestockings tells an inspiring story - of defiance and determination, of colourful eccentricity and at times heartbreaking loneliness, as well as of passionate friendships, midnight cocoa-parties and glorious self-discovery. 'Social history of the best kind' Sunday Times 'Modern girls need reminding of the long battle, and Jane Robinson's fine book does just that, charting the lives and struggles of campaigners' Mail on Sunday

This book provides a path-breaking study of the genesis, growth, gains, and dilemmas of women's movements in countries throughout the world. Its focus is on the global South, where women's movements have engaged in complex negotiations with national and international forces. It challenges widely held assumptions about the Western origins and character of local feminisms. The authors locate women's movements within the terrain from which they emerged by exploring their relationships with the state, civil society, and other social movements. This fully revised second edition contains six new chapters by leading scholars of women and gender studies, on both individual countries and on several major regions of the world? Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Maghreb. This balanced coverage enables readers to identify regional patterns and also learn from in-depth case studies. Women's Movements in the Global Era is essential reading for anyone interested in the global scope and implications of feminism.

Divided into three sections on cosmetics, clothes and hairstyling, this book explores how early modern women regarded beauty culture and in what ways skin, clothes and hair could be used to represent racial, class and gender identities, and to convey political, religious and philosophical ideals.

Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women's Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898