95 Books In 2006, George W. Bush read 95 books. We will do better.

Part of my research on women and mental illness.

Barbara Ehrenreich & Deirdre English provide a readable tour through the effects of industrialization on women, from the enclosure of the commons to the present. The Woman Question arose after the industrialization of household work (like soap and candle making, clothes washing, food production etc.) took work and purpose away from women in what was a pre-industrial, patriarchal society. What, then were women to do? Who were women to be?

Ehrenreich and English chart the rise of the (European/North American) Experts: from gentleman doctors, scientists, home economics experts (the first of whom were women, trying to put science and esteem behind “women’s work), motherhood experts, through to the pop psychology experts of today, all firmly grounded in a historical and sociological context. They also chart the rise of feminism, and feminist attempts to re-write the Experts’ misogynistic prescriptions for women, noting the racial and class differences that affected the advice and assistance given to women. Puts a needed perspective on the lives of individual women from 1800 to the present. 

-Nikki