The news in 2008 was that women had tak­en huge strides for­ward. Fem­i­nists’ decades-long strug­gle final­ly seemed to be pay­ing off, not only in board­rooms, class­rooms, and kitchens but also at the very top — in pres­i­den­tial pol­i­tics. But what is the truth behind the head­lines?

In Sex­ism in Amer­i­ca: Alive, Well, and Ruin­ing Our Future, renowned fem­i­nist author Bar­bara J. Berg debunks the many myths about how far women have come and the per­va­sive belief that ours is a post­fem­i­nist soci­ety. Com­bin­ing author­i­ta­tive research and com­pelling sto­ry­telling, Berg traces the assault on women’s sta­tus from the 1950s — when Newsweek declared ​“for the Amer­i­can girl, books and babies don’t mix” — to the present, explor­ing the decep­tion about women’s progress and con­tex­tu­al­iz­ing our cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. All women are hurt by a soci­ety laud­ing their attrib­ut­es in speech­es while scorn­ing them in pub­lic pol­i­cy and pop­u­lar cul­ture, and the lega­cy of the women’s move­ment is being short-cir­cuit­ed in every aspect of their lives.

Pas­sion­ate, exten­sive­ly doc­u­ment­ed, humor­ous, and per­sua­sive, Sex­ism in Amer­i­ca is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly enlight­en­ing, fright­en­ing, and revi­tal­iz­ing. Berg, an ardent opti­mist, helps women under­stand where they are and why and how they can move beyond the mar­gin­al­iz­ing strate­gies. It is exact­ly the right book at exact­ly the right time.