audiobook Separated by Their Sex: Women in Public and Private in the Colonial Atlantic World by Mary Beth Norton in History

Review

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful. the emergence of a "private sphere" in the Anglo-American worldBy hmf22Separated by Their Sex serves both as a sequel to Norton's Founding Mothers and Fathers; on gender in seventeenth-century America; and as a prequel to her classic book Liberty's Daughters; on American women of the Revolutionary Era. In the course of writing these books; Norton noticed that there was a profound disjuncture between the seventeenth century Anglo-American world; in which authority depended primarily on social rank; not gender; and the late eighteenth-century Anglo-American world; in which women were keenly conscious of their gender and tended to describe their spheres as "narrow" and "little." In Separated by Their Sex; Norton seeks to explain how the first mode of thinking turned into the second.Norton's depiction of this process is pithy; cogent; and convincing. She warns the reader early on that this is primarily a work of intellectual; not social; history; but in fact she strives to balance the two; with detailed portraits of women such as Sarah Kemble Knight and Lady Chatham and a lengthy exploration of Frances Berkeley's role in the events surrounding Bacon's Rebellion. Norton resurrects some little-known texts; such as John Dunton's Athenian Mercury; to depict just how attitudes towards women's involvement in politics and public affairs changed with each passing generation. What astonished me; on reading this book; is how quick and emphatic the change was. Norton's biographical vignettes; taken as a group; suggest that there may have been a slight time lag from Britain to America; but by the eve of the American Revolution; the transition was fully realized on both sides of the Atlantic; and women across the Anglo-American world were newly and deeply preoccupied with how they filled their roles not just as daughters; wives; mothers; and mistresses of households; but specifically as women; women who would ideally confine themselves to a newly articulated "private" sphere.0 of 2 people found the following review helpful. "The gendered public-private divide originated in eighteenth-century England."By ROROTOKOThis book is on the Rorotoko list. Professor Norton's interview on "Separated by their Sex" ran as the Rorotoko Cover Feature on June 15; 2011 (and can be read in the Rorotoko archive).