"This is an intersectional account of what it has meant to be a woman in America for the past century. Griffith forces us to consider the complexity of women and acknowledge that we have been 'oppressors, progressives, enslaved, activists, adversaries and allies.' Griffith has found the words for us and does an exemplary job of showing how women have always discovered ways to be powerful, regardless of obstacles."
Griffith is a consummate storyteller, combining research and riveting narrative to keep alive the political and social struggle for equal rights by American women front and center. Readers will be caught up in the heroism and resilience of this diverse cast of characters. Griffith magnificently covered the early campaign for suffrage, from Seneca Falls to 1920, in her first book, which helped to make our film about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony—Not for Ourselves Alone . Now she carries that story forward to 2020, as Black and white women confront yet another set of obstacles and objectives.
"Author and historian Elisabeth Griffith offers an unprecendented survey of the women's suffrage movement that masterfully intertwines two paralle crusades for justice, those of Black and white women. Beginning with the certification of the 19th Amendment and concluding with the 2020 presidential election, Formidable explains the complexities, nuances, and challenges of the fight for women's equality over the last century. Weaving together the separate and sometimes competing aspirations of Black and white women, Griffith provides the missing link in a crucial story of women's rights in contemporary America. Finally, we have one book that brings together American women in their many dimensions and complexities in one informative and compelling narrative."
05/02/2022
Historian Griffith (In Her Own Right ) provides an informative survey of women’s gains and setbacks since the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Focusing on the “interwoven” struggles for equal rights and civil rights, Griffith’s diverse roster of profile subjects includes antilynching crusader Ida B. Wells; legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term intersectionality ; early 20th-century Native American activist Zitkala-Ša; and Dolores Huerta, a schoolteacher of Mexican descent who turned to labor union activism in the 1960s. Griffith also traces the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment from its launch in the 1920s to its defeat 50 years later by Republican operative Phyllis Schlafly, and the quest for reproductive rights, which flourished from the 1920s through the 1970s before experiencing a strong backlash after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Scattered throughout are brisk portraits of pioneers including Black astronaut Mae Jemison, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and Vice President Kamala Harris. Noting that women’s achievements have been both hard-won and fragile, Griffith laments how racial, class, and political divisions have slowed the path to equality, but strikes an appealing note of optimism in the book’s final pages. This is an impassioned and inspiring introduction to how far the women’s movement has come, and where it still needs to go. Illus. (Aug.)
Historian and women’s-rights activist Griffith (In Her Own Right, 1984) provides an engrossing, extremely detailed survey of the rights women have both gained and lost from 1920 to 2020. This well-researched tome opens with the suffrage movement and runs through the civil-rights era to modern movements such as #MeToo. Women’s rights are examined decade by decade through a myriad of lenses, including political movements, pop-culture representation, civil rights, war, economics, and health care. The formation of united fronts in pursuit of change is delved into, as is the fragmentation of movements as various avenues and causes are pursued, sometimes putting activists at odds. Women of all walks of life and of every race and culture—whether Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, Jewish, lesbian, working class, or upper class—are examined and extolled in the long fight for women’s rights in America. This is a perfect text for feminists, activists, and readers of history and sociology.
"In Formidable , Elisabeth Griffith relates how American women have approached political activism in the last century. The interplay between racism and sexism, Griffith argues, has also always been central to women’s fight for equality, even before the term “intersectionality” was coined. The women’s movement is a flawed, complex entity that will continue to boost American women far into the future, argues Formidable , an overview of the diversity of American women and their role in political history."
"An engaging, relevant and sweeping chronicle of women’s fight for equality in the United States. Books of true feminist history are rare. Rarer still are these histories intersectional; feminist history tends to be synonymous with white women’s history. Not this book. Griffith delivers a multiracial, inclusive timeline of the struggles and triumphs of both Black and white women in America. A profoundly illuminating tour de force."
New York Times Book Review
"Formidable is an essential history of the one-hundred-year struggle between 1920 and 2020 by both Black and white women in America to achieve their equal rights. Griffith surveys the successes and setbacks that remained relevant and pressing across the century: voting rights, racial violence, health care, reproductive rights, working conditions, education, race, and gender discrimination, electoral office. Through her comprehensive survey of the people, events, and movements that marked this history, she highlights the women, and men, who were both pushing for change and those who resisted it. The final outcome of that struggle is not yet decided."
"Just as fascinating as the struggle for women to vote is the fresh new focus on what the ensuing one-hundred years has brought. Griffith's compelling narrative casts new light on victories but also persistent fault lines in the quest for equality across the social landscape. The portraits in Formidable pave the way for the inspiring work going forward. Based on her important scholarship, Griffith brings a fresh focus to American women. Formidable is a vibrant journey that leads authoritatively towards the challenges that still slow the road to equality,"
"Social change is slow and stumbling. For women, especially women of color, it's been a struggle to reach political equality. Formidable tells about those struggles—the players, the losses, and the wins—that lead us to today. For those of us who demand political equality, it's important to understand where we've come from to appreciate where we're going. No defeat need be permanent. No victory is final. But change will come."
"Elisabeth Griffith explores and evokes a feisty, intriguing cast that brings to life "Act II' of American women's struggle for equal rights. She introduces us to women of diverse racial, class and sexual identities who traversed the United States in a never-ending protest parade. As I read their stories I wept, applauded, and shouted: "right on, sisters!"
"As the author of Freedom's Daughters's, the first history of women in the U.S. civil rights movement, I'm delighted to endorse Elisabeth Griffith's illuminating new examination of the seminal rolse that Black women and white women have played in this country's never-ending struggles for equal rights. As Griffith notes, much has been written about the separate movements for women's equality and Black equality. But the interconnections between the two—and the complicated, often tortured relationships between the Black and white women involved in these battles—are topics that have not received the attention they deserve. The same is true of the close ties between misogyny and racism, meant to repress both women and Black people in the defense of white male perogatives—a particularly timely subject today."
"Taking teh 19th Amendment as a starting point instead of a finish line, Formidable explores the first hundred years of the struggle to complete the unfinished business of women's suffrage: women's equality. A keen and witty observer of American history and politics, Griffith seamlessly weaves together diverse stories of women both familiar and unheralded, and takes an unflinching look at the role of race, class, and religion. Epic in its scope and detail, Formidable tells the vital story of the last century of women's activism in all its messy, imperfect glory."
★ 07/01/2022
The history of women's rights in the U.S. is messy, and historian Griffith's (In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton ) book dives into the tangle of personalities, politics, and passions and surfaces with a great narrative. The author presents both the inspiring and ugly sides of the struggle for equality, including suffragettes who used racism to promote their cause, some in-fighting, and many disagreements on strategies. Excluded from white organizations, women of color formed their own. The fight for women's rights is presented as a swath of battles by people of different races, classes, and lived experiences, all with different goals reflecting the various needs of women. The book also presents those who stood and still stand opposed to issues like the Equal Rights Amendment and reproductive rights. The book wraps up with a comparison of major issues in 1920 and 2022. VERDICT This is a fantastic and enjoyable book tracing 100 years of work and struggle for women's equality. A great book for general readers and a must read for anyone interested in women's and American political history.—Susanne Caro
2022-05-24
Griffith, the author of a biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, offers an encyclopedic overview of women’s advocacy for issues they believed crucial to their lives. Beginning with the suffrage movement, different constituencies often saw those issues differently: Black and Jewish women, for example, feeling excluded by White, Protestant suffragists, formed their own organizations. Jewish women focused on ending immigration quotas; Black women, on anti-lynching laws. Passage of the 19th Amendment gave White women hope that by voting, they would gain power to achieve reforms such as workplace safety and child labor laws. Although Black women were enfranchised, too, their right to vote was not protected, leading to “panic” at the polls. Ending racial violence and discrimination became, for Black women, the most significant issue. Griffith follows women’s lives decade by decade, identifying important figures in politics, social movements, popular culture, and the arts who inspired or incited change, from Ida Wells-Barnett to Hilary Clinton, Carrie Chapman Catt to Stacey Abrams. Throughout the century, Griffith notes a fragmentation of alliances. By the 1990s, she reveals, myriad organizations formed “around causes like childcare, domestic violence, economic inequality, environmental toxins, food deserts, health care, incarceration, labor conditions, maternal mortality, police accountability, and women with disabilities, among many other concerns. Groups formed around shared identities—lesbians, Latinas, librarians, women on welfare, women in physics, Native Americans, and so many others.” Conservative women have supported the tea party, anti-abortion activism, and candidates such as Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann. From the 1913 suffrage parade to the #MeToo movement, divisiveness persists. Women’s optimism about the power of the vote has been tempered by reality. “When you start at barely any and advance to more, the line on a graph tracking women’s progress might suggest dramatic improvement,” writes Griffith. “If you amortize those changes over a century, the pace is slower and the line is flatter.”
A hefty, thoroughly researched contribution to women’s history.
