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oyceterIt took me absolutely forever to read this, mostly because I was constantly distracted by shiny fiction. As a result, I've sort of forgotten some of the essays in the book, which is a shame, because the book was really very interesting.
Disorderly Conduct is a collection of Carroll Smith-Rosenberg's assorted essays on women's history spanning from roughly the 1840s to the 1930s. There are essays on female friendship in the nineteenth century, the place of women's history or a feminist reading of history in the academic world, medical discourse on sexuality and menses during the Victorian era, and etc. I personally found all of the essays fascinating, particularly the one on female friendship and the one tracing the development of the anti-abortion movement in America.
I don't have much background in the subjects, but I think the essays are in general well-written and thought-provoking, although occasionally Smith-Rosenberg will draw some conclusions that I haven't necessarily come to. As a whole though, I like the scholarship and how the author is very careful to delineate the strictures of her research so that there aren't too many sweeping generalizations made, which is often my problem with what I've read in the sort of women's studies area. Mostly I just regret that she very often uses primary sources from the men's point of view, especially in the sections on medical discourse on sexuality. Also, there's a scarcity of primary sources from non-bourgeois women, but most of that is probably the lack of resources in that area rather than the author ignoring that aspect.
What I really wish the book had were some brief author's notes on each essay. Smith-Rosenberg mentions in the preface that seeing twelve years' worth of essays in one book is rather strange because of constantly changing philosophies and thoughts, and I was curious as to how she viewed each essay in light of her positions now. The author commentary on essays was probably one of my favorite parts about Ursula K. LeGuin's Dancing at the Edge of the World
The book definitely sparked many interesting thoughts, which I have mostly now forgotten. I vaguely remember some of them -- I was curious as to the strength of friendship between women back then and how that's held up now. Wanted to think more about the change from lesbian as symbol of non-reproductive relationships and thus as a threat to fertility to the lesbian as symbol of man-hating/man-replacement and thus a threat to manhood in general. Really wanted to know more about the history of abortion after this. And much more.
Table of contents listed out for anyone interested:
Hearing Women's Words: A Feminist Reconstruction of History
The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth-Century America
Bourgeois Discourse and the Age of Jackson: An Introduction
Davy Crockett as Trickster: Pornography, Liminality, and Symbolic Inversion in Victorian America
Beauty, the Beast, and the Militant Woman: A Case Study in Sex Roles and Social Stress in Jacksonian America
The Cross and the Pedestal: Women, Anti-Ritualism, and the Emergence of the American Bourgeoisie
Beurgeois Discourse and the Progressive Era: An Introduction
Puberty to Menopause: The Cycle of Femininity in Nineteenth-Century America
The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America
The Abortion Movement and the AMA, 1850-1880
The New Woman as Androgyne: Social Disorder and Gender Crisis, 1870-1936
Disorderly Conduct is a collection of Carroll Smith-Rosenberg's assorted essays on women's history spanning from roughly the 1840s to the 1930s. There are essays on female friendship in the nineteenth century, the place of women's history or a feminist reading of history in the academic world, medical discourse on sexuality and menses during the Victorian era, and etc. I personally found all of the essays fascinating, particularly the one on female friendship and the one tracing the development of the anti-abortion movement in America.
I don't have much background in the subjects, but I think the essays are in general well-written and thought-provoking, although occasionally Smith-Rosenberg will draw some conclusions that I haven't necessarily come to. As a whole though, I like the scholarship and how the author is very careful to delineate the strictures of her research so that there aren't too many sweeping generalizations made, which is often my problem with what I've read in the sort of women's studies area. Mostly I just regret that she very often uses primary sources from the men's point of view, especially in the sections on medical discourse on sexuality. Also, there's a scarcity of primary sources from non-bourgeois women, but most of that is probably the lack of resources in that area rather than the author ignoring that aspect.
What I really wish the book had were some brief author's notes on each essay. Smith-Rosenberg mentions in the preface that seeing twelve years' worth of essays in one book is rather strange because of constantly changing philosophies and thoughts, and I was curious as to how she viewed each essay in light of her positions now. The author commentary on essays was probably one of my favorite parts about Ursula K. LeGuin's Dancing at the Edge of the World
The book definitely sparked many interesting thoughts, which I have mostly now forgotten. I vaguely remember some of them -- I was curious as to the strength of friendship between women back then and how that's held up now. Wanted to think more about the change from lesbian as symbol of non-reproductive relationships and thus as a threat to fertility to the lesbian as symbol of man-hating/man-replacement and thus a threat to manhood in general. Really wanted to know more about the history of abortion after this. And much more.
Table of contents listed out for anyone interested:
Hearing Women's Words: A Feminist Reconstruction of History
The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth-Century America
Bourgeois Discourse and the Age of Jackson: An Introduction
Davy Crockett as Trickster: Pornography, Liminality, and Symbolic Inversion in Victorian America
Beauty, the Beast, and the Militant Woman: A Case Study in Sex Roles and Social Stress in Jacksonian America
The Cross and the Pedestal: Women, Anti-Ritualism, and the Emergence of the American Bourgeoisie
Beurgeois Discourse and the Progressive Era: An Introduction
Puberty to Menopause: The Cycle of Femininity in Nineteenth-Century America
The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America
The Abortion Movement and the AMA, 1850-1880
The New Woman as Androgyne: Social Disorder and Gender Crisis, 1870-1936