Desiring revolution : second-wave feminism and the rewriting of American sexual thought, 1920 to 1982 / Jane Gerhard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gerhard, Jane F.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Feminism--United States--History--20th century.

Feminism.

United States.

History.

Women--Sexual behavior--United States--History--20th century.

Women.

Women--Sexual behavior.

Sex (Psychology).

Physical Description:

ix, 232 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2001]

Summary:

In the 1970s sex was what mattered most to feminists. White middle-class women viewed sex as central to both their oppression and their liberation. Young women started to speak and write about the clitoris, orgasm, and masturbation, and publishers and media jumped at the opportunity to disseminate their views. Gerhard asks why issues of sex and female pleasure came to matter so much to these "second-wave feminists." In answering this question Gerhard reveals the diverse views of sexuality within feminism and shows how the radical ideas put forward by this generation of American women was a response to attempts to define and contain female sexuality going back to the beginning of the century.

Contents:

Introduction: Sex and the Feminist, 1970 1

Chapter 1. Modern Women and Modern Marriage: Reinventing Female Heterosexuality 13

Chapter 2. Between Freudianism and Feminism: Sexology's Postwar Challenge 51

Chapter 3. Politicizing Pleasure: Radical Feminist Sexual Theory, 1968-1975 81

Chapter 4. Desires and Their Discontents: Feminist Fiction of the 1970s 117

Chapter 5. Cultural Feminism: Reimagining Sexual Freedom, 1975-1982 149

Conclusion: Negotiating Legacies in the Feminist Sex Wars, 1982 183.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [197]-228) and index.

ISBN:

0231112041

023111205X

OCLC:

44811793