... engaging, relevant and sweeping ... Books of true feminist history are rare. Rarer still are these histories intersectional; feminist history tends to be synonymous with white women’s history. Not this book. Griffith delivers a multiracial, inclusive timeline of the struggles and triumphs of both Black and white women in America ... A profoundly illuminating tour de force ... In this immense survey, Griffith is inclined to examine every motivation of her subjects as she unearths long-buried intersectional archives. Most notable is her articulation of the malignant dysfunction as women struggle to find a unified, inclusive path to equality. She is not content to leave out the many moments of white women falling back to self-interested silos ... Griffith excels in examining each feminist cause and its accompanying downsides ... Griffith does not skim over the spots when the suffrage movement splintered. Rather, she understands the assignment: All are invited but no one is off the hook ... There is power in Griffith’s writing — not the style, which is factual and straightforward, but in the cumulative efforts of the hundreds, if not thousands, of characters that she acknowledges. At times, the book’s sheer scope is overwhelming, like listening to Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire — a fire hose of information, names and actions, protests and pantsuits ... The result is a memorial of female freedom fighters, long overdue, and the emergence of a set of instructions for the next generation ... the reader is carried not by the storyteller but by the tale and takeaway: Success comes not from short manic bursts of effort, but from a constant carrying of the torch. As America descends deeper into paralysis and polarization, Griffith’s subtle and accessible examination shows that victories arise through the miracle of cooperation. Not by factional division but through unity and perseverance. Feminist history is written every day, and Griffith leaves us with the reminder that there is much work to do, as always ... a shock and a lesson, a reminder that if we want to persevere we must be ready to begin again and again, again and again.
The book focuses most on white and Black women, with nods to Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, and queer women, too. It spotlights a long list of prominent, groundbreaking, and morally complex women ... The women’s movement is a flawed, complex entity that will continue to boost American women far into the future, argues Formidable, an overview of the diversity of American women and their role in political history.
... dives into the tangle of personalities, politics, and passions and surfaces with a great narrative. The author presents both the inspiring and ugly sides of the struggle for equality, including suffragettes who used racism to promote their cause, some in-fighting, and many disagreements on strategies ... This is a fantastic and enjoyable book tracing 100 years of work and struggle for women’s equality. A great book for general readers and a must read for anyone interested in women’s and American political history.
A confession: A few pages into historian Elisabeth Griffith’s book, I felt the weariness of a lifelong feminist. Who needs to read this encyclopedic account of the last 100 years of women’s fight for equality? By the time I finished the introduction, my mood had shifted. Who needs this steamroller of a timeline full of pluckable facts and anecdotes about what women have endured in America? Far too many of us, I’m afraid. Including me ... It is large at nearly 400 pages of text because it must be, as historical accounts of women’s history seldom lift our gaze beyond the activists, who were mostly White and united for the cause, and with plenty of free time to pursue it. This is an intersectional account of what it has meant to be a woman in America for the past century ... commands us to consider just who we mean when we talk about women’s history ... As I read Griffith’s book, I found the most uncomfortable passages to be the most necessary, particularly regarding racism ... Griffith has found the words for us and does an exemplary job of showing how women have always discovered ways to be powerful, regardless of obstacles. The lesson is always the same: The sooner we recognize this power in one another, the sooner the next wave of progress will reach our shores.
The slow pace of women’s progress comes across viscerally in this meticulous, well-sourced volume, which at times feels like one very, very long lecture in an Introduction to Women’s Studies class ... It is a worthy aim, and the result is certainly inclusive, though the sheer volume of information the book presents tends to overwhelm the significance of individual contributions, including those of Black women ... Precisely because of its almost detached tone, Formidable comes across as an excellent book to share with white feminists skeptical of the value of concepts like intersectionality. The narrative’s general avoidance of judgment or even much analysis is compelling in its own way; one can argue about the ideal relationship between the Black Lives Matter movement and women’s rights, but the historical record is impossible to deny ... For readers already well aware of racism in the women’s movement, there is still much in this book that will inform and even amuse ... The author, an historian whose previous book illuminated the life of activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, is partial to long paragraphs of declarative sentences without a lot of transitional language. This works well as a concise chronicle of the many cultural, political, and personal events that make up a century-long, national history. But this style can make it difficult to track the many threads Griffith is weaving together; the reader may occasionally wonder if they’ve missed some important connection between ideas, or if the author has simply drifted into non sequitur. Fortunately, the book is well-indexed, so if you come across a name you don’t recognize but suspect you should know, you can always look it up in the back.
Noting that women’s achievements have been both hard-won and fragile, Griffith laments how racial, class, and political divisions have slowed the path to equality, but strikes an appealing note of optimism in the book’s final pages. This is an impassioned and inspiring introduction to how far the women’s movement has come, and where it still needs to go.
