The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America

This book explores the history of the women's movement in the 20th century. Although many books have been written on the first wave of feminism, this book deals with the second wave--written by a real pioneer in the field of women's history. The World Split Open shows how rights possessed by women today were almost non-existent less than fifty years ago. Although women gained the right to vote in the early part of the twentieth century, this book shows how far women still had (and still do have) to go. Ruth Rosen is an amazing person (I was a student in her women's history course at UC Davis last year), and I highly recomend this book to those interested in the study of not only women, but the American family as a whole. Further, I challenge anyone who sees "feminists" in a negative light to read this book and thus have their assumptions proven false.

This is a labor of love, a work so beautifully written, balanced, careful, yet passioante. It is a stunning contribution to the literature on the women's movemnet. Everyone, young and old, should read this to remember where we've been, and to reconsider where we might go.

I lived through this era, but I was a young man and had no idea of the amazing changes the women's movement caused. Now I understand the women in my life much better. I recommend this book to all men who want to understand how the world has changed and how they fit into it.

The myth is that the American women's movement was the domain of upper-echelon white women who wanted it all--exciting sex, prestigious careers, brilliant children they didn't have to take care of--and that working women, especially those of color, rejected it as irrelelvant to their lives. In fact, as Ruth Rosen's excellent book shows, women from many walks of life took part in a multi-faceted movement that has brought remarkable changes and helped all women. This book about women also describes the sweep of US social movements, including civil rights, over the past 50 years. I found the chapters tracing the rise and fall of the New Left in the 1960s fascinating. It's well known that women who went south to help with voter-registration drives were put down by their male co-workers. Less known is the influence on them of black women activists they met there. Seeing "the remarkable clout black women wielded in their churches and civic organizations," white women later used them as role models for grassroots organizing in northern cities. In Students for a Democratic Society, men wrote theoretical papers on how to revamp society and women mimeographed them--and ran the offices, gaining administrative skills. By 1969, says Rosen, the New Left "was in tatters" while the women's movement took off in the 1970s--and is still going strong. "The World Split Open" gives a comprehensive view of the women's movement, filling in important events that the media ignored in favor of the sensational. For people in other countries, it also provides a well-researched, readable account of American movements for social justice over the past half-century, centered around the experiences of women. This is a book to read now, and keep on your referrence shelf.

Rosen, a historian, professor, activist and journalist brings the wisdoms of her personal and professional experiences to bear upon the modern Women's Movement. The result is a refreshing, candid, almost conversational accounting and chronicle, as well as an astute and careful analysis of the many impacts and consequences of the movement for American life. The numerous interviews with both known and unknown leaders of the movement are captured with such precision that at times you feel you are there. When Rosen then moves toward grounding these voices in the larger social-cultural-political contexts of the times, we begin to really experience the extent and depth of the Movement not only for American life but for life as we know it.This is a must read for anyone wanting to better understand not only the modern Women's Movement, but themselves. As a psychotherapist, educator and social worker at the University of Michigan, I work daily with those struggling with their roles and identities. I think this is an excellent resource for helping women (and men) understand their personal struggles in context, which as Rosen's title so aptly puts it, makes "The World Split Open", and thus the personal truly political.