Review: Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism, by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox

Abstract

Book Review| November 01 2022 Review: Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism, by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox Einav Rabinovitch-Fox. Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021. 248 pp. Paperback $24.95. Jill Fields Jill Fields JILL FIELDS is a professor of history and founding coordinator of Jewish studies at Fresno State, where she teaches courses in women’s history, popular culture, and Jewish studies. She is the author of An Intimate Affair: Women, Lingerie, and Sexuality (2007) and editor of Entering the Picture: Judy Chicago, the Fresno Feminist Art Program, and the Collective Visions of Women Artists (2012). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California History (2022) 99 (4): 103–105. https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2022.99.4.103 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Jill Fields; Review: Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism, by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox. California History 1 November 2022; 99 (4): 103–105. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2022.99.4.103 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCalifornia History Search Women’s struggles to gain control over what they wear have a long history that parallels and is part of women’s rights advocacy in the United States. In Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism, Einav Rabinovitch-Fox uses an expansive framework to trace a century of feminist objections to uncomfortable and impractical clothing. Challenging simplistic views that highlight only feminist criticism of fashion, the author explores the ways in which feminists utilized dress to effectively broadcast the popularity of their movement and to undermine opposition to feminism based on media-fueled stereotypes of activists as unattractive. She also considers women who adopted fashionable styles that were associated with progress and modernity, but who did not necessarily identify as or with feminists. To do so, she draws on a wealth of sources, ranging from magazine and newspaper accounts to memoirs and organizational records, to assay such diverse topics as the... You do not currently have access to this content.