Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960 (Critical Perspectives on the Past)
Women's history is being rewritten, deconstructed and reconfigured daily. Existing scholarship has tended to reinforce the perception that the women's movement retreated in the years between WW II and the '60s. Not June Cleaver , reconsiders the roles of women as mothers, workers, activists, unionists and pacifists and read together these fine essays signify a systematic devaluation of women that eventually manifested itself in the coming of age of the women's movement. Of particular interest are the chapters, ``Is Family Devotion Now Subversive?'' by Deborah A. Gerson and ``I Wanted the Whole World to See'' by Ruth Feldstein. The former chronicles the efforts of the Families Committee of Smith Act Victims in defying McCarthyism, while the latter recounts the trial of Emmett Till, focusing on how motherhood was defined along class and racial lines. Other chapters recognize the contributions of Chinese and Mexican-American women to the union movement; recount the sexual demonization of lesbians; and reveal how mothers became the surprise ``weapon'' of the Civil Defense protest movement. Meyerowitz has pulled together a collection that smartly argues that for women the 15 years following WW II were not a time for reflection and analysis, rather a period of re-massing and struggle.Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.