Women Money Power: The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality

“Money and, by extension, power remain stubbornly gendered,” according to this incisive debut history. Journalist Cox investigates American women’s economic status from WWII through the present by telling stories of women “who dedicated their lives to female economic empowerment.” The subjects include Anna Mae Krier, who assembled bomber planes during WWII and later successfully petitioned Congress for recognition of women’s contributions to Allied victory; Margaret Sanger, whose fruitful efforts to create a birth control pill meant fewer women had to drop out of the workforce because of unplanned pregnancies; and U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm, whose impassioned advocacy on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment still couldn’t secure its passage. There’s some jaw-dropping trivia (“It wasn’t until 1988, and the Women’s Business Ownership Act... that all women were able to get a business loan without a male cosigner”), and Cox makes depressingly clear how some ostensibly successful gender equality campaigns have actually been pyrrhic victories. For instance, she notes that the lawyer who represented Goodyear supervisor Lilly Ledbetter in an equal pay case against her employer (the Supreme Court ruled against her in 2007, but Congress named its 2009 Fair Pay Act after her) reports that businesses still routinely flout the law. It’s a rousing testament to the achievements of women activists, and a damning indictment of how America has failed to protect their gains. Photos. Agent: Dan Mandel, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc. (Mar.)