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In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America
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About In Pursuit Of Equity: Women, Men, And The Quest For
Product Description In this volume, Alice Kessler-Harris explores the transformation of some of the United States' most significant social policies. Tracing changing ideals of fairness from the 1920s to the 1970s, she shows how a deeply embedded set of beliefs, or "gendered imagination" shaped seemingly neutral social legislation to limit the freedom and equality of women. Law and custom generally sought to protect women from exploitation, and sometimes from employment itself; but at the same time, they assigned the most important benefits to wage work. Most policy makers (even female ones) assumed from the beginning that women would not be breadwinners. Kessler-Harris shows how ideas about what was fair for men as well as women influenced old age and unemployment insurance, fair labor standards, Federal income tax policy, and the new discussion of women's rights that emerged after World War II. Only in the 1960s and 1970s did the gendered imagination begin to alter--yet the process is far from complete. Review "Through her painstaking examination of major legislation, Alice Kessler-Harris creates a framework for understanding not only the past but also the struggles women face today."-- The Women's Review of Books " In Pursuit of Equity is a sensitive and illuminating exploration of the manifold ways in which gendered habits of mind shape social action. It is a contribution not just to the history of the past but to the history of the future."--Arthur Schlesinger Jr. "Kessler-Harris's cautious optimism about our shared economic future is hard to resist."-- Publishers Weekly "Broad in scope and enriched by detailed research.... In Pursuit of Equity is a fine work, with an important and nuanced argument, the kind of book that forces one to rethink assumptions about gender, politics, citizenship, and the struggle for social justice."--Miriam Cohen, Evalyn Clark Professor of History, Vassar College, Business History Review "No one has yet done what Alice Kessler-Harris has in her newest book In Pursuit of Equity, reaching beyond [T.H.] Marshall and his critics to suggest a new concept, economic citizenship. In this history of how women have been treated in employment, tax, and welfare policy, Kessler-Harris--arguably the leading historian of women's labor in the United States--synthesizes several decades of feminist analysis to produce a holistic conception of what full citizenship for women might entail. In lucid prose with vivid (and sometimes comic) illustrations of the snarled thinking that results from conceiving of women as dependents--rather than equal in heading families--she offers a vision of how we can move toward greater democracy. In the process, she also shows us what we are up against. Her book illustrates brilliantly how assumptions about appropriate gender roles are built into all aspects of policy."--Linda Gordon, The Nation "A vigorous historical analysis of the 20-century U.S. social policies that produced differential access to resources for men and women....Kessler-Harris succeeds in showing how gender has shaped the rules by which we live, how gendered habits of mind have been inscribed in social policies that continue to frame our lives, and how, once these habits are embedded in the legislative, judicial, and policymaking mechanisms of society, only such a critical, penetrating analysis as this can challenge them and begin to advance the cause of modern feminism."-- Library Journal " In Pursuit of Equity is the latest testament to Alice Kessler-Harris' original scholarship. Professor Kessler-Harris brilliantly documents the often subtle ways that women have been historically denied economic citizenship in the United States. This book enhanced my awareness of the impact of what she calls 'the gendered imagination' in the shaping of policies that lead to enduring forms of economic inequality."--William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University, author
