Women, in and out of control

“How much do you make things happen or let them happen to you?” “Can women be happy alone?” – questions such as these form the basis of a series of interviews with women, from heiresses to factory workers, conducted in the 1960s by the British writer Nell Dunn; as a reissue of Talking To Women appears Kate Webb introduces us to this seminal feminist text. And Patricia J. Williams discusses the role and lingering influence of the  Progressive Era's 'American Plan' to stamp out immorality through policies including compulsory STD tests and government-endorsed sterilization

Books

Talking To Women by Nell Dunn

Fixing the Poor: Eugenic sterilization and child welfare in the twentieth century by Molly Ladd-Taylor 

The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, surveillance, and the decades-long government plan to imprison 'promiscuous' women by  Scott W. Stern