They Didn't See Us Coming

March 16, 2020
In this focused and persuasive study, UNC Greensboro history professor Levenstein (A Movement Without Marches) pinpoints the 1990s as a transitional decade when the feminist movement became decentered, intersectional, diverse, global, and coalition-driven. She chronicles the 1995 Non-Governmental Organization Forum in Beijing, where mainstream organizations such as the Ms. Foundation and NOW came under criticism for trying to legislate diversity from the top down, and U.S. activists discovered they had “far less to teach than to learn” from international groups. Levenstein discusses how new technologies created an alternative media landscape, fostering niche subcommunities around the world and necessitating new methods for navigating dissent. The biggest cultural change, according to Levenstein, was the broadening of feminism’s objectives from equal pay and reproductive justice to include human rights issues, such as climate change, economic inequality, labor organizing, and disability rights. Levenstein concludes by profiling three U.S. organizations (SisterSong, SONG, and INCITE!) founded by women of color in the 1990s. Her sober-minded, revisionist history effectively counters stereotypes of the decade’s feminism as being “obsessed with fashion, celebrity, and ‘mindless sex talk.’ ” Contemporary feminists will be enlightened, while those who entered the movement in the ’90s will feel vindicated.

April 1, 2020

Like Andi Zeisler's We Were Feminists Once, Levenstein's latest (A Movement Without Marches) serves simultaneously as a history that is critical yet nostalgic; a call to action as well as a structural interrogation of the politics undergirding and contextualizing 90s feminism. Levenstein draws attention to the often-discussed power differentials that were unintentionally but problematically replicated by predominately white feminists, and she analyzes the enduring tension between intersectionality in theory and in fact. Especially astute is her chapter on the rise of digital feminism and online activism, as she spotlights pioneering ways in which specialists such as Barbara Ann O'Leary worked in the forefront of digital technology, while remaining aware of the digital divide. Levenstein adds nuances that will provide rich space for current feminist theorists, scholars, and activists to dig deeper into feminist history, and its social ramifications in a digital era. VERDICT A valuable contribution to the history of feminism at its grassroots and global levels, as well as a message to readers about how difficult it is to anticipate what online tools and developments will emerge as feminism continues to grow, along with the material, political, and intellectual issues abutting it.--Emily Bowles, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2020
An authoritative account of how the feminist movement evolved during the 1990s and beyond. Levenstein, the director of the women's, gender, and sexuality program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, has long been keeping a close watch on the feminist movement in both scholarly journals and the popular press. In this follow-up to her first book, A Movement Without Marches, the author begins in 1995, with the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, where white middle- and upper-middle-class American women, accustomed to being viewed as the leaders of the feminist movement, bumped into women from around the world with important ideas and agendas of their own: women of color, older women, environmentalists, and peace activists. From interviews with dozens of women, the author creates a sharp portrait of the attitudes and techniques of feminist leaders forging global networks to tackle problems such as violence against women, reproductive issues, poverty, racism, discrimination of all varieties, and even climate change. "Throughout the 1990s," she writes, "activists fiercely debated who feminism should represent and what strategies it should employ. Such disagreements proliferated not because feminism lost its way but because so many different people increasingly felt invested in shaping the movement." Levenstein's discussion of the multifaceted battle over welfare is especially revealing while her miniprofiles and her conversations with activists allow readers to see them growing into their roles and trying to figure out the best direction for their future actions. The author shows how feminism greatly expanded its realm of influence and makes clear how the internet provided necessary tools--e.g., Twitter, Facebook--for groups to connect with others, arouse public interest in an issue, change opinions, and raise funds. Levenstein successfully combines well-documented research with personal observations and interviews to create an accessible and informative narrative. Required reading for classes in women's studies.

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June 1, 2020
The nineties were a period of intense debate within feminism, as women of color, lesbians, and working-class women began to step out of the margins to take their place at the table. Gender studies professor Levenstein draws on extensive interviews with activists to tell the story of this decade's coalition building and its lasting impacts on the landscape of contemporary feminism. The book takes as a starting point the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, a pivotal moment in feminist organizing. From the Beijing conference onward, women of all backgrounds began to form groups to address a range of feminist issues, from labor practices to climate change to reproductive justice, while taking close account of the lived experiences of marginalized people. Through tireless advocacy, these groups succeeded in changing the national and international conversations about women's issues, in ways that are sometimes taken for granted in the twenty-first century. In this compelling and inspiring book, Levenstein ensures that the feminist groups of the nineties will take their rightful place in women's history.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)