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Moving the Mountain: The Women's Movement in America since 1960
Moving the Mountain tells the story of the struggles and triumphs of thousands of activists who achieved "half a revolution" between 1960 and 1990. In this award-winning book, the most complete history of the women's movement to date, Flora Davis presents a grass-roots view of the small steps and giant leaps that have changed laws and institutions as well as the prejudices and unspoken rules governing a woman's place in American society. Looking at every major feminist issue from the point of view of the participants in the struggle, Moving the Mountain conveys the excitement, the frustration, and the creative chaos of feminism's Second Wave. A new afterword assesses the movement's progress in the 1990s and prospects for the new century.
632 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1991
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August 6, 2025
AN EXCELLENT AND THOROUGH HISTORICAL SURVEY OF 30 YEARS
Author Flora Davis wrote in the 1991 book, “This is an activists’ history, short on feminist theory and long on accounts of political action. It is full of anecdotes---activists’ ‘war stories’---and the nitty-gritty details of how women tackled the issues that confronted them. In writing it, the question that most interested me was: How did feminists achieve what they did?... In short: How do people who are dissatisfied with the status quo achieve social change?... I’ve tried to capture on these pages a sense of the excitement, the craziness, the sheer creative chaos of the women’s movement at its peak.” (Pg. 9-10)
She continues, “When I decided to write this book back in 1982, I felt that feminism had reached a turning point. The ERA had been defeated despite broad public support. A right-wing administration was out to reverse many of the gains women had made. Progress had stalled and in some ways the movement was actually losing ground. I was afraid that the second wave was over. Instead, though feminists faced formidable opposition throughout the 1980s, the movement continued to grow and change. At times, it even seemed to thrive on opposition---which said something about how broadly based and deeply rooted it had become. Nevertheless, the struggle continues… in the future, women will gain more ground only if activists continue the effort. That’s why it seems important now to look back over the past 30 years of movement history and ask: … What have we accomplished and what remains to be done?” (Pg. 11)
Of the 1920-1960 period, she comments, “Historians today speak of the first and second waves of feminism to underline the fact that there has been one long, continuous women’s movement rather than two, separated by a 40-year hiatus… Yet for years, many Americans assumed that feminism had died in 1920 when women won the vote and suffragists retired to private life. History was distorted because contemporary journalists … eagerly seized on every sign of fading feminist reality. (During the second wave, too, the media kept reporting on the death of feminism.)" (Pg. 27)
She reports, “Women’s liberation activists launched several publications in 1968 that helped build the movement… They questioned the traditional goals of women’s lives---love, marriage, children. Declaring that men were the enemy, they recommended that their female readers try karate, periodic celibacy, and living in women’s communes… [But] in the beginning politicos tended to scoff at them, pointing out that they were about personal issues rather than the serious stuff of politics.” (Pg. 79)
She states, “In the late 1960s and early 70s, thousands of C-R [consciousness-raising] groups formed around the country. The women who joined them found that consciousness-raising challenged many of their basic assumptions about themselves and their relation to men… In the end, consciousness-raising drew thousands of women into the movement. Within a very few years, most of its critics had embraced it enthusiastically.” (Pg. 88-89)
She explains, “Many things separated women’s liberationists from liberal feminists… their priorities were seldom the same. Nevertheless, it may have been as much style as substance that made them incompatible. Liberal groups were organized along traditional hierarchical lines: Members elected officers, voted on major decisions… Most women’s liberation groups, on the other hand, were determined to operate without leaders and to arrive at decisions by consensus. The commitment to radical equality that was characteristic of women’s liberation was carried to harmful extremes in some groups. However, when it worked, it generated such a powerful experience that eventually it influenced liberal feminists as well.” (Pg. 94) Later, she adds, “some women’s liberation groups … carried their aversion to hierarchies to extremes. Women who stood out from the rest for any reason were accused of elitism and ‘trashed.’ … the period from 1969-1971 became known as feminism’s ‘McCarthy era’ because of the dogmatism of some groups.” (Pg. 98)
She recounts, “Between about 1972 and 1975… as the women’s movement continued to expand and new groups kept forming, most of them coalesced around some single specific problem, such as rape… As a result, the second wave began to spin off a barrage of other movements: there was a battered women’s movement, a women’s health movement, and so on… The remaining general-interest groups, such as NOW, worked with the coalitions at times on particular issues.” (Pg. 137-138)
She summarizes, “For many feminists, the early seventies were the best and worst of times. For a few months or years, women’s liberation WAS their life… For a time, feminists were wide open to new ideas… But after a while…. There wasn’t the same sense of discovery. In addition, more feminists now felt the need for action. Thus, many of the early women’s liberation groups died because they’d done their job. Members used the support of the group to make changes in themselves and their circumstances. They then moved on to new challenges … Over the years, they continued to work for the movement in other ways.” (Pg. 143)
She reports, “For many NOW members, lesbianism was a sensitive subject because they had had to defend themselves against accusations that all feminists were gay. As the few out-of-the-closet lesbians in New York began to press the organization to take a position on lesbian rights… Betty Friedan herself considered the lesbian issue… a ‘lavender menace'… As the decade spun to a close, the conflict within NOW escalated… Rita Mae Brown and two confederates put out the NOW-New York newsletter for the last time and featured their own angry letter of resignation, in which they observed that ‘lesbianism is the one word which gives the New York N.O.W. Executive Committee a collective heart attack.’ … the whole sequence of events… came to be known as NOW’s first lesbian ‘purge’; there was to be a second one.” (Pg. 263-264)
She notes, “If a woman raped by her date had little chance of justice, a wife raped by her husband had even less. Until the late 1970s, there were few states in which marital rape was against the law… For a long time, state legislators resisted feminist efforts to make rape a crime. Most were married men, and some probably shared the sentiments of the California state senator who asked, ‘But if you can’t rape your wife, who can you rape?’” (Pg. 316)
She observes, “In the controversy over porn, many feminists were caught in the middle. Though they deplored the brand of porn that eroticized violence against women, they were afraid the attempt to curb it might undermine free speech… Many feminists like Lynn Hecht Schafran … pointed out that people couldn’t buy magazines devoted to the torture of Jews or of blacks at their corner newsstand; why should the torture of women be different?” (Pg. 329-330)
She acknowledges, “After the defeat of the ERA in the early 1980s, the women’s movement reached its lowest ebb. Some of the major national organizations were in trouble financially, and many Americans were blaming the movement for the bind women were in as they struggled to do justice to both job and family… [But] by the end of the decade the movement was broader than ever before, for throughout the eighties it continued to expand, spinning off new groups and even submovements… In addition… the women’s movement became globalized.” (Pg. 471-472)
She concludes, “The second wave of the women’s movement accomplished an enormous amount during its first thirty years---Americans had only to look back to add up the score… Feminism in the last half of the 20th century produced at least half a revolution.” (Pg. 491)
This is an excellent, very comprehensive and detailed survey, that will be of great interest to anyone studying the history of the women’s movement.
Author Flora Davis wrote in the 1991 book, “This is an activists’ history, short on feminist theory and long on accounts of political action. It is full of anecdotes---activists’ ‘war stories’---and the nitty-gritty details of how women tackled the issues that confronted them. In writing it, the question that most interested me was: How did feminists achieve what they did?... In short: How do people who are dissatisfied with the status quo achieve social change?... I’ve tried to capture on these pages a sense of the excitement, the craziness, the sheer creative chaos of the women’s movement at its peak.” (Pg. 9-10)
She continues, “When I decided to write this book back in 1982, I felt that feminism had reached a turning point. The ERA had been defeated despite broad public support. A right-wing administration was out to reverse many of the gains women had made. Progress had stalled and in some ways the movement was actually losing ground. I was afraid that the second wave was over. Instead, though feminists faced formidable opposition throughout the 1980s, the movement continued to grow and change. At times, it even seemed to thrive on opposition---which said something about how broadly based and deeply rooted it had become. Nevertheless, the struggle continues… in the future, women will gain more ground only if activists continue the effort. That’s why it seems important now to look back over the past 30 years of movement history and ask: … What have we accomplished and what remains to be done?” (Pg. 11)
Of the 1920-1960 period, she comments, “Historians today speak of the first and second waves of feminism to underline the fact that there has been one long, continuous women’s movement rather than two, separated by a 40-year hiatus… Yet for years, many Americans assumed that feminism had died in 1920 when women won the vote and suffragists retired to private life. History was distorted because contemporary journalists … eagerly seized on every sign of fading feminist reality. (During the second wave, too, the media kept reporting on the death of feminism.)" (Pg. 27)
She reports, “Women’s liberation activists launched several publications in 1968 that helped build the movement… They questioned the traditional goals of women’s lives---love, marriage, children. Declaring that men were the enemy, they recommended that their female readers try karate, periodic celibacy, and living in women’s communes… [But] in the beginning politicos tended to scoff at them, pointing out that they were about personal issues rather than the serious stuff of politics.” (Pg. 79)
She states, “In the late 1960s and early 70s, thousands of C-R [consciousness-raising] groups formed around the country. The women who joined them found that consciousness-raising challenged many of their basic assumptions about themselves and their relation to men… In the end, consciousness-raising drew thousands of women into the movement. Within a very few years, most of its critics had embraced it enthusiastically.” (Pg. 88-89)
She explains, “Many things separated women’s liberationists from liberal feminists… their priorities were seldom the same. Nevertheless, it may have been as much style as substance that made them incompatible. Liberal groups were organized along traditional hierarchical lines: Members elected officers, voted on major decisions… Most women’s liberation groups, on the other hand, were determined to operate without leaders and to arrive at decisions by consensus. The commitment to radical equality that was characteristic of women’s liberation was carried to harmful extremes in some groups. However, when it worked, it generated such a powerful experience that eventually it influenced liberal feminists as well.” (Pg. 94) Later, she adds, “some women’s liberation groups … carried their aversion to hierarchies to extremes. Women who stood out from the rest for any reason were accused of elitism and ‘trashed.’ … the period from 1969-1971 became known as feminism’s ‘McCarthy era’ because of the dogmatism of some groups.” (Pg. 98)
She recounts, “Between about 1972 and 1975… as the women’s movement continued to expand and new groups kept forming, most of them coalesced around some single specific problem, such as rape… As a result, the second wave began to spin off a barrage of other movements: there was a battered women’s movement, a women’s health movement, and so on… The remaining general-interest groups, such as NOW, worked with the coalitions at times on particular issues.” (Pg. 137-138)
She summarizes, “For many feminists, the early seventies were the best and worst of times. For a few months or years, women’s liberation WAS their life… For a time, feminists were wide open to new ideas… But after a while…. There wasn’t the same sense of discovery. In addition, more feminists now felt the need for action. Thus, many of the early women’s liberation groups died because they’d done their job. Members used the support of the group to make changes in themselves and their circumstances. They then moved on to new challenges … Over the years, they continued to work for the movement in other ways.” (Pg. 143)
She reports, “For many NOW members, lesbianism was a sensitive subject because they had had to defend themselves against accusations that all feminists were gay. As the few out-of-the-closet lesbians in New York began to press the organization to take a position on lesbian rights… Betty Friedan herself considered the lesbian issue… a ‘lavender menace'… As the decade spun to a close, the conflict within NOW escalated… Rita Mae Brown and two confederates put out the NOW-New York newsletter for the last time and featured their own angry letter of resignation, in which they observed that ‘lesbianism is the one word which gives the New York N.O.W. Executive Committee a collective heart attack.’ … the whole sequence of events… came to be known as NOW’s first lesbian ‘purge’; there was to be a second one.” (Pg. 263-264)
She notes, “If a woman raped by her date had little chance of justice, a wife raped by her husband had even less. Until the late 1970s, there were few states in which marital rape was against the law… For a long time, state legislators resisted feminist efforts to make rape a crime. Most were married men, and some probably shared the sentiments of the California state senator who asked, ‘But if you can’t rape your wife, who can you rape?’” (Pg. 316)
She observes, “In the controversy over porn, many feminists were caught in the middle. Though they deplored the brand of porn that eroticized violence against women, they were afraid the attempt to curb it might undermine free speech… Many feminists like Lynn Hecht Schafran … pointed out that people couldn’t buy magazines devoted to the torture of Jews or of blacks at their corner newsstand; why should the torture of women be different?” (Pg. 329-330)
She acknowledges, “After the defeat of the ERA in the early 1980s, the women’s movement reached its lowest ebb. Some of the major national organizations were in trouble financially, and many Americans were blaming the movement for the bind women were in as they struggled to do justice to both job and family… [But] by the end of the decade the movement was broader than ever before, for throughout the eighties it continued to expand, spinning off new groups and even submovements… In addition… the women’s movement became globalized.” (Pg. 471-472)
She concludes, “The second wave of the women’s movement accomplished an enormous amount during its first thirty years---Americans had only to look back to add up the score… Feminism in the last half of the 20th century produced at least half a revolution.” (Pg. 491)
This is an excellent, very comprehensive and detailed survey, that will be of great interest to anyone studying the history of the women’s movement.
February 24, 2017
This book should be better known. This balanced history of the women's movement is full of fascinating insights into abortion rights and the evolution of other legislation to expand women's legal standing.
January 1, 2016
I've read this book twice. I think I might go back an re-read it soon. It is so accessible and infuriating and inspiring to hear the stories of women who came before me, and the things I take for granted now being rare the year I was born.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews