... an ambitious attempt to delineate nothing less than the changing state of being female in this country over the past four centuries. Woman is exhaustively researched and finely written, with more than 100 pages of endnotes.

... enslaved women are not named in Faderman’s history.

... a somewhat conventional women’s history survey from the sixteenth century to the present, and I mean that in a nice way. It is written with grace and style, reintroducing characters long familiar to devotees of women’s history.

Faderman ably brings the discussion into the 21st century and the present day, when nonbinary conceptions of gender are gaining further acceptance in the mainstream even as the resolutely patriarchal system—perfectly embodied by Donald Trump and his cohorts—continues to fight against anything other than a strictly binary gender structure. This highly readable, inclusive, and deeply researched book will appeal to scholars of women and gender studies as well as anyone seeking to understand the historical patterns that misogyny has etched across every era of American culture. An intelligently provocative, vital reading experience..

In each historical period, Faderman pays close attention to groups often excluded from histories of the campaign for gender equality, including Black and Indigenous women and working-class white women like Clara Lemlich, leader of a massive 1909 garment workers’ strike in New York City...but gives somewhat short shrift to the surging interest in gender nonconformity among Generation Z . Still, this is a comprehensive and lucid overview of the ongoing campaign to free women from 'the tyranny of old notions.'.