The Women Who Broke All the Rules: How the Choices of a Generation Changed Our Lives
YA-This breezy, conversational book recounts the stories of 100 women born between 1945 and 1955. While their individual successes were not noteworthy, their collective actions improved conditions and provided opportunities for young women today. Most of the individuals profiled came from traditional, middle-class families that expected their daughters to get an education, get married, and have a family-in that order-certainly by their early 20s. Evans and Avis traced the behavior-changing factors in 1960s and 1970s society-birth control and abortion, women's rights legislation, the escalating divorce rate, and increased career opportunities-that affected these young women. Their stories involve drug use, abuse, and free sex widely practiced at the time. Remarkably, they overcame their difficulties and turned their lives around. The book will provide today's youth with good insight into the conditions of the period, all the more credible in that the stories included were from "ordinary" women. An interesting read that will hold the attention of most teens.Jean Johnston, Fairfax County Public Library, VACopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.