In histories of feminism, the phrase second wave has become controversial, seeming to describe a narrow and elitist movement. Among the most damning critiques of “second wavers” is that they helped to shore up hierarchical labor relationships and an unjust economy in the 1970s by demanding access to the workplace as it was. But as Feminism’s Forgotten Fight teaches us, that’s not what happened. Even in examining a traditional “second-wave” chronology and familiar types of movement actors, Kirsten Swinth offers an exciting new account that recasts the entire movement.
Feminism’s Forgotten Fight profiles liberal feminists, radical feminists, and feminists of color who argued that work and family needed structural transformation if gender equality was to be realized. They claimed that women should be able to “have it all,” not that they already could. These activists did not cause the decline of the family wage system, but they seized on its...
