By engaging deeply with United States' legal and political history, Gendered Citizenship illuminates the ideological contours of the original struggle over the ERA. Through an examination of almost-forty different archival collections, several court cases, and a multitude of government documents, Gendered Citizenship unearths the array of both men and women who participated in the original conflict. In the process, Gendered Citizenship takes the struggle over the ERA in an entirely new direction. Rather than focusing on the familiar theme of why the ERA failed to gain enactment, Gendered Citizenship explores how the debates over the ERA transcended traditional political divides of the early to mid-twentieth century and ultimately redefined the concept of citizenship in the United States.
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PRAISE FOR GENDERED CITIZENSHIP
SHANNON WEBER, PHD
Author of Feminism in Minutes and Activists Assemble: We are all Equal!
"Rebecca DeWolf's Gendered Citizenship impressively chronicles the competing civic ideologies--protectionism and emancipationism--present in the early fight for the ERA, showing us that how we understand gender regardless of political party has been foundational to the fight for women's legal equality...Readers should consider Gendered Citizenship essential reading for crafting a 21st legal playbook that counters biological determinism and champions true legal gender equity!"
REBECCA BRENNER GRAHAM, PHD
Historian and Educator. Review of Gendered Citizenship for the Society of U.S. Intellectual History
"DeWolf guides readers back to the original ERA conflict to dissect its roots, explicate what it meant, and trace how lingering gender inequality stems from it...Gendered Citizenship is a must-read for history lovers, policy wonks, women's rights activists, and anyone else interested in how the U.S. government can support gender equality."
LAURA D'AMORE, PHD
author of Vigilante Feminists and Agents of Destiny: Violence, Empowerment, and the Teenage/Super Heroine
"This changes the game, in terms of what we have at our disposal now to talk about the forces that have historically supported or rejected not only the ERA but the ideological positions that coalesce to support or reject the ERA...the book is important because it is an original way of looking at a topic that many folks think has been fully covered, but DeWolf’s book proves has been missing major pieces. The attention paid to this particular historical time period, and the particular lens of looking at the topic from the vantage point of emancipationism and protectionism, is extremely valuable as a contribution to the field. It is meticulously historically researched, using relevant primary source archives, and appropriate secondary sources where needed."
JOHANNA NEUMAN, PHD
author of Gilded Suffragists: The New York Socialites Who Fought for Women’s Right to Vote
“Like the sun peeking through the clouds, Rebecca DeWolf’s groundbreaking book clears the fog that has long surrounded the Equal Rights Amendment. . . . Anyone who wants to understand why the ERA is not yet law would be well advised to read this book.”
BETSY FISCHER MARTIN
executive director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University
“Rebecca DeWolf has brought us a meticulously researched and vividly detailed account of the original ERA conflict that provides readers with rich context to trace how the arguments against gender equality of nearly a century ago continue to shape our cultural attitudes about the role and duties of women in the domestic sphere today.”
PAGE HARRINGTON
former executive director of the National Woman’s Party at the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument
“By tracing the origins of the ERA from the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to 1963, DeWolf offers a deep legal and judicial review of the debate around what constitutes equality under the law and the very nature of citizenship.”
CANDICE SHY HOOPER
author of Lincoln’s Generals’ Wives: Four Women Who Influenced the Civil War—For Better and For Worse
“DeWolf’s thoughtful analysis of the forty-year struggle [between the ERA’s advocates and its foes] reveals that their disagreements were primarily ideological, not political. . . . This is a deep dive into the enduring constitutional struggle over the meaning of citizenship, a story that DeWolf tells with deep understanding and critical insight.”
ANGIE MAXWELL, PHD
author of The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics
“Rebecca DeWolf has given us a book we desperately need—perhaps now more than ever. In Gendered Citizenship DeWolf peels back the layers of conflict surrounding the Equal Rights Amendment . . . to the core question regarding the true scope of American citizenship that arose in the wake of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment securing women’s suffrage in 1920.”