Author Description

In this extensively revised and expanded edition of their highly-praised 1985 volume, Myra Marx Ferree and Beth B. Hess trace three decades of struggle and change wrought by the New Feminist Movement. Contemporary feminism has indelibly and irrevocably transformed American culture, institutional structures and practices, and the consciousness of individual women and men. Whether or not openly acknowledged, a majority of American women support the goals of this most broad-based and far-reaching social movement. The authors trace the rise of contemporary feminism, noting its ties to the earlier suffrage movement, its grounding in historical changes since the 1920s, and the particular conditions of its emergence in the 1960s. Ferree and Hess describe the diversity of its multiple constituencies and ideological positions, tracing numerous areas of conflict as well as consolidation, as both the movement and its external environment change over the decades. Internal dissension and encounters with a powerful backlash movement have shaped the new feminism in directions only dimly envisaged in the 1960s, yet of profound significance for the future. In the light of these developments, each chapter has been reconceptualized and rewritten, and two new ones added to cover the period from 1982 to the present. The volume closes with an assessment of the achievements of the New Feminist Movement, its strengths and failures, and the potential for further changes in the new millennium. Complementing the book's eight chapters are photographs and tables, as well as a selected bibliography and a new feature - a chronology of major events in the history of American feminism over the past three decades. This new and expanded edition of Controversy and Coalition should enjoy wide appeal among students in the fields of gender studies, social movements, sociology, and political science.