Woman : the American history of an idea / Lillian Faderman.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 425-534) and index.

Introduction: Tyranny and mutability in the idea of woman -- Woman in Seventeenth-century America -- Woman, lady, and not a woman in the eighteenth century -- Daughters of liberty: woman and a war of independence -- Woman enters the public sphere: the nineteenth century -- Nineteenth-century woman leaves home -- Woman goes to college and enters the professions -- The struggle to transform woman into citizen -- The "New Woman" and "new women" in a new century -- "It's sex o'clock in America" -- Woman on a seesaw: the Depression and World War II -- Sending her back to the place where God had set her: woman in the 1950s -- A new "new woman" emerges (carrying baggage): the 1960s -- Radical women and the radical woman -- How sex spawned a new "woman": the 1990s -- "Woman" in a new millennium -- Epilogue: The end of "woman"?

What does it mean to be a "woman" in America? Award-winning gender and sexuality scholar Lillian Faderman traces the evolution of the meaning from Puritan ideas of God's plan for women to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and its reversals to the impact of such recent events as #metoo, the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the election of Kamala Harris as vice president, and the transgender movement. This wide-ranging 400-year history chronicles conflicts, retreats, defeats, and hard-won victories in both the private and the public sectors and shines a light on the often-overlooked battles of enslaved women and women leaders in tribal nations. Noting that every attempt to cement a particular definition of "woman" has been met with resistance, Faderman also shows that successful challenges to the status quo are often short-lived. As she underlines, the idea of womanhood in America continues to be contested.