ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
All three of us thank Norton’s marvelous editor Robert Weil, a rare treasure. We are grateful for the sage
counsel of Charlotte Sheedy and the guidance and hard work of Will Menaker, India Cooper, and the rest
of the Norton design and editorial team.
DOROTHY SUE COBBLE extends gratitude to Linda Gordon, who invented and believed in this joint
project. I thank my coauthors, Linda and Astrid, for being the best possible writing “sisters”: tolerant of
dissent, worthy of emulation. It was the feminist consciousness-raising group I had always wanted. My
thanks also to my dear friends Nancy Hewitt and Joanne Meyerowitz, who took time away from their own
writing and teaching to read my first unwieldy drafts. Your unflagging optimism and astute interventions
made more of a difference than you know. Of course, no one is more familiar with the various drafts of
this book and the emotional states that accompanied each one than my husband, Michael Merrill. His
patience, wisdom, and love amaze and delight me every day.
LINDA GORDON thanks above all Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall, who has taught me about feminism for forty
years. Dorothy Sue and Astrid taught me vast amounts in just one year of working together and blessed me
with their intelligence, commitment, and patience in undertaking this book, which, as always, I imagined
as far less work than it turned out to be—so I am everlastingly grateful not only for their willingness to do
it but for their friendship. A big thank-you to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the NYU
Graduate School, who gave me a year’s leave in which I finished my part of this book. Thanks to Karen
Nussbaum and Tony Platt for reading and commenting. My beloved students and my daughter, Rosie, try,
with mixed success, to keep me aware of current popular culture. My life’s pal, Allen, tries, also with
mixed success, to complicate my thinking. Generations of women’s studies scholars shaped me in every
way. It’s been a collective trip throughout, and my gratitude to all these people is vast.
ASTRID HENRY is enormously grateful to Linda for the invitation to participate in this project. Writing
this book with Linda and Dorothy Sue was everything feminist collaboration should be: invigorating,
challenging, intellectually stimulating, and fun. I will never forget our many lively discussions around
Linda’s dining room table. Many thanks to the Louise R. Noun Program in Women’s Studies at Grinnell
College for financial support for this project. Anna Banker’s assistance with research was invaluable to
the completion of my chapter, as were the astute insights of my writing group: David Cook-Martin, Karla
Erickson, and Dan Reynolds. I couldn’t have completed this book without the love, support, and insightful
editing skills of David Harrison. I am indebted to my students for helping me to stay up-to-date on
contemporary feminist issues, and I drew much inspiration and guidance from my fellow scholars working
on feminism in the early twenty-first century.