This important scholarship gives us that understanding and shows that “ FW represented a significant aspect of a growing political and social backlash to the era’s turbulence, which many feared was eroding traditional institutions and values” (2). As Neuffer explains, “In order to fully understand the feminist movement, one must also understand the fascinating womanhood movement” (x). Neuffer’s research brings us an understanding of Andelin’s “wide appeal as both a religious and political leader,” which augmented “the fast-expanding discussion about women’s strategies to cope with-and shape-political and social change” (3). This volume makes the study of the “femininity women’s movement” a part of a growing body of scholarship that expands the definition of the women’s movement in politics and religion during the 1960s and 1970s (3). One contribution of Neuffer’s work is to show that Andelin’s FW movement was an alternative to the ideas forwarded by the women’s liberation movement (159). Neuffer’s biography gives an unprecedented view of a neglected topic in twentieth-century women’s history, gender studies, women’s studies, and Mormon studies. The movement sought to demarcate feminine roles and gifts rather than close the gender gap a woman’s “essential nature” (39) could bring love and order to a marriage. While growing up, I heard about Fascinating Womanhood ( FW) but did not realize the scope of the movement’s influence on millions of women in the twentieth century. Though she is sympathetic to Andelin, Neuffer’s portrayal is accurate, impartial, and unbiased.
Neuffer reached this goal, for, having finished the book, I am still unsure if Neuffer is for or against Andelin’s philosophy. Helen Andelin and the movement she founded, within the larger historical context of women’s reform efforts” (4). In writing Helen Andelin and the Fascinating Womanhood Movement, it was Julie Debra Neuffer’s hope that her study would “provide a scholarly and evenhanded look at the philosophy and motivations of.
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