1
Stephanie Kelly
HIST 6393
Post-45 U.S.
Ruth Rosen, World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Change
America, (New York: Penguin, 2000).
The experiences of women in the fifties would hardly be recognizable or
acceptable to most young women growing up today, who often look back in disbelief at
the blatant discrimination and subordination that constricted women’s identities.
Remarkably, however far removed these two worlds seem now, it was only a span of two
decades that separated them, and in between “feminism’s second wave” transformed
women and America. This second wave of feminism is the subject of Ruth Rosen’s The
World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America. Rosen
chronicles the women’s movement from its origins in women’s discontent with the
traditional roles of the 1950’s through the emergence of the “superwoman” at the end of
the twentieth century. Drawing on an extensive selection of primary material, including
the authors own experiences in the women’s movement, the monograph examines the
social and political movements, groups, and individuals that shaped feminism in
America.
The first part of the book more or less chronicles the people and groups that
influenced the women’s movement, whereas the second half examines the cultural and
personal implications. In part one of the book, Rosen lays out the seeds of discontent that
resulted in a whole generation of women rejecting their mother’s way of life. This
discontent of women in the 1950’s would not materialize as a women’s revolution until
they “learned how to use their identity as women as a weapon in the battle against
2
discrimination and in the struggle for equality” (p. 36). This necessary shared
consciousness would develop alongside other movements challenging the status quo in
the decade of the sixties. In fact, Rosen argues that it was women’s involvement in the
civil rights movement and anti-war movements of the sixties that revealed both the
deeply entrenched subordination of women and the idea that collective action could
destroy inequality. Politically, the women’s movement ran up against what Rosen
describes as the “limits of liberalism”, when politicians paid only lip service to instituting
real change. For example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
created by Title VII of the Civil Right Act consistently avoided investigating complaints
of discrimination by women. This affront ignited the women’s movement and led to
individuals like Betty Freidan establishing organizations such as NOW. Groups like
NOW focused on the social and legal policies that constricted women’s choices, while at
the grassroots level “consciousness raising” rap groups were taking place that allowed
women to share their frustrations with other women.
In addition to organization such as NOW, Rosen spends a good deal of time
discussing how women in the New Left shaped ideas of feminism and women’s
liberation. Groups such as the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) provided a chance for women to use their
talents and intellects to change society, but their involvement in these groups often
brought to light the unquestioned subordination of women in society, even in progressive
and leftists groups. Women like Mary King and Casey Cason, who were prominent in
SNCC, began to question the group’s chauvinistic practices and attitudes. When their
protests were met by condescension and jokes, many women in the New Left decided to
3
break away from the groups that taught them so much about how to organize and began
using their skills to organize the women’s movement.
One integral part of the women’s movement was the impact of the sexual
revolution and how it highlighted the “hidden injuries of sex”. For many women the
sexual revolution happened on men’s terms and often was accompanied by further
exploitation. The fake orgasm became a metaphor for sexual exploitation as thousands of
women began exploring the meaning behind it in their “rap sessions”. Rosen argues that
an entire generation was confused about its sexuality and what the sexual revolution had
accomplished. A more positive outcome of this debate was the open space it gave to the
issue of homosexuality and the many lesbians who joined women’s liberation groups.
However, just as women in the New Left found their men failed them, lesbians in the
women’s movement were often sidelined and let down by their “sisters”. Women activist
from the old guard, like Betty Freidan, often fought against opening the debate on
equality to issues like lesbianism. As the movement grew issues such as abortion,
protection for prostitution, and pornography further divided and polarized women. In the
end, Rosen contends that feminists did not agree whether the sexual revolution brought
liberation or exploitation. However, “the excavation of the hidden injuries of sex
underscored the inadequacies of the male sexual revolution, redefined certain customs as
crimes, and ultimately redrew the political and social agenda of American political
culture”.
In addressing the growing fragmentation of feminism and the women’s
movement, Rosen looks at internal rivalries, what she calls ‘trashing”, and the paranoia
engendered by FBI infiltration aimed at containing the radicalism of certain groups and
4
creating divisions. One particular victim of internal “trashing” she highlights is Gloria
Steinem. Many feminist felt that Steinem, founder of Ms. Magazine, was a sell out to
commercialism and had in fact deradicalized the movement. In addition, the FBI’s
widespread infiltration of groups created a sense of paranoia once their infiltration was
uncovered in 1976. Even Rosen remarks how shocked she was to learn of the extent to
which groups had been infiltrated by women who posed as “sisters” in the movement. In
the end, the FBI’s tactics only exacerbated tendencies that already existed and a
fragmentation that was inevitable. Fragmentation, however, had its silver lining because
as the movement diffused and spread it became accessible to other women. As the “postfeminist” generation came of age and began rejecting the “bitter feminist” label, women
from minority groups began reinventing feminism to fit their own cultural identities.
Black women, many of whom rejected feminism as a white woman’s issue, began
exploring their own double oppression as a minority and a woman. Many minority
groups linked women’s issues to larger political issues.
The most interesting analysis of the book comes at the end when Rosen examines
the rise in the eighties and nineties of the “Superwoman”. The transformation from a
collective “sisterhood” to individual “superwomen” is a phenomenon that can only be
understood in the context of the backlash against feminist and how the right, along with
the culture of consumerism, has been able to co-opt women’s liberation and present it as
something in contradiction to its original goals. Critics of feminism successfully linked
the nation’s obsession with individualism and consumerism to feminism, even though the
movement actually rejected these ideas. The media played their part in first mocking the
movement and then sensationalizing it. From images of dikes to bra burnings (that
5
actually never happened), the media honed in on superficial, sensational aspects of
feminism and failed to cover the real story. So feminism in the eighties and nineties
came to be associated with women who could have it all: a career, a family, a wonderful
marriage, and all the while look great. Yet this “have it all” woman rarely resonated with
the average woman. In the end, the book leaves the reader with a sense of the profound
changes that took place over such a short time span. Yet, it also leaves you wondering
what those changes mean. The subtitle, How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed
America, is somewhat misleading in that Rosen provides no clear cut answer. Though
American women and American culture had been unquestionably altered, the author
leaves us with a sense that there still exits ambiguities about what it all means for women
and their role in society. This is especially true for poor women, who often haven’t had
the time and energy to notice how things have changed (partly because things haven’t
really changed for them). Though Rosen does address the way black women responded
to and participated in the movement, for the most part the book deals with feminism as a
white middle class phenomenon. As a history of the prominent people, groups, and
issues that drove “feminism’s second wave” it is well documented and chronicled. The
more novel material is in the second half of the book, as the first half seems to draw on
mostly secondary literature. Overall, it represent a very readable history of the women’s
movement, yet isn’t fully successful in explaining how it has changed the lives of average
women.