The Paradox of Gender Equality : How American Women's Groups Gained and Lost Their Public Voice

Drawing on original research, Kristin A. Goss examines how women's civic place has changed over the span of more than 120 years, how public policy has driven these changes, and why these changes matter for women and American democracy. Suffrage, which granted women the right to vote and invited their democratic participation, provided a dual platform for the expansion of women's policy agendas. As measured by women's groups' appearances before the U.S. Congress, women's collective political engagement continued to grow between 1920 and 1960 - when many conventional accounts claim it declined - and declined after 1980, when it might have been expected to grow. This waxing and waning was accompanied by major shifts in issue agendas, from broad public interests to narrow feminist interests. Goss suggests that ascriptive differences are not necessarily barriers to disadvantaged groups' capacity to be heard; that enhanced political inclusion does not necessarily lead to greater collective engagement; and that rights movements do not necessarily constitute the best way to understand the political participation of marginalized groups. She asks what women have gained - and perhaps lost - through expanded incorporation as well as whether single-sex organizations continue to matter in 21st-century America."--Book Jacket Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Preface to the 2020 Edition 16 One: Women’s Citizenship and American Democracy 26 Two: Suffrage and the Rise of Women’s Policy Advocacy 49 Three: The Second Wave Surges—And Then? 73 Four: From Public Interest to “Special Interests” 101 Five: Sameness, Difference, and Women’s Civic Place 130 Six: What Drove the Changes? The Not-So-Easy Answers 155 Seven: How Public Policy Shaped Women’s Civic Place 182 Eight: Women, Citizenship, and Public Policy in the 21st Century 211 Appendix A: Congressional Hearings Data and Other Sources 228 Appendix B: How the Foreign and Health Policy Testimony Was Selected 232 Notes 234 Bibliography 240 Index 254 Women's citizenship and American democracy Suffrage and the rise of women's policy advocacy The second wave surges "and then" From public interest to "special interests" Sameness, difference, and women's civic place What drove the changes? the not-so-easy answers How public policy shaped women's civic place Women, citizenship, and public policy in the 21st century.