Boundaries of Her Body: A Troubling History of Women's Rights in America

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Summary: Man's Perspective
Review: A remarkably well researched book. Women's Rights can now be studied chronologically, as separate issues within the text and anecdotal studies illuminating both issues and the general concept of women's rights. I found particularly startling the section describing the victimization of(very)young females in an international, commercial sex trade. The chapter endnotes, while initially appearing quite daunting, do a good job of providing references for further study of the many concepts, facts and history that receive(understandably)truncated treatment in a chapter.

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Summary: Useful court cases but shakey stats and logic
Review: Debran Rowland wrote a comprehensive book citing an excellent array of court cases impacting women's rights. However, her poor use of statistics and inconsistent "logic" seriously undermine the credibility of the book. Read with caution and a critical, analytical mind.

1) Poor use/understanding of statistics. One of her worst uses of statistics is on pages 102-103. "The (pregnancy) rate in some states, however, remains high. 1n 1996, California reported the highest number of adolescent pregnancies ... with roughly 126,000 instances. Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois followed...States posting the lowest rates of teenage pregancy...were Vermont, North Dakota, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Alaska, which reported fewer than 2,000 pregnancies..." First, the numbers she uses are not "rates". They are just the total number in each state regardless of their population. A true pregnancy rate would be "per something", such as "per capita" or "per 1000 teenagers". Thus, the numbers she uses are virtually useless. They simply tell us that some of our most populous states have the most teen pregnancies and that our least populous states have the lowest number of teen pregnancies. Why waste my time with such obvious information and then erroneously infer that California has a high teen pregancy rate?

2) Lack of Logical Argument. Her logic is inconsistent and she often fails to present a solid case against views she opposes. To her, they're so obviously wrong that she feels no need to refute them. Yet to bolster the cause of women, she needs to give them and their supporters strong, logical arguments to refute attacks from the other side. Example: She rightly dismisses the use of historical mistreatment of women as reasoning to continue repression of women, but then nearly in the next breath, she cites the "ancient histories" of birth control and abortion to support their use and acceptance (p.97). She can't have it both ways.

Commendable effort, Ms Rowland, but a more rigorous scrubbing of your statistics and logical arguments would have produced a vastly more powerful book and tool to support women's rights.


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Summary: An authority in women's rights
Review: The single best authority from which to begin or continue the study of women's rights is The Boundaries of Her Body. Ms. Rowland fills each page with rich history, thought-provoking analogies, and the most original points of view ever printed in any women's studies work. There are more than one's share of end-note referencing, which eliminates the frustration of not knowing where a piece of information comes from. This masterpiece is both the beginning from which one can continue learning about the developments(or lack thereof) in women's rights in America, and the culmination of so many well-articulated works and facts tied together in a way not seen until now. You will be brought through the journey that women have made since coming to America, and you will be forced to ponder why even the latest developments in the law work against the burgeoning woman. Be prepared to grapple with the contradictions that adolescent females must face in an already confusing time in their life and the violence from which few women are protected in the name of the law. The theme, in the words of the author, is "A debate over what a woman is, what a woman ought to be, and what a woman should, therefore be allowed to do." Get absorbed in this debate as Ms. Rowland so passionately does.


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Summary: Fantastic Book by Rowland
Review: This book is truly fabulous! Enjoyable reading from start to finish. It is amazing to think of the amount of research that went into putting together such a magnificent piece of work. Highly Recommended to all!

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Summary: Amazing Overview of Women's Rights in the U.S.
Review: This is an amazing and comprehensive book that describes the evolution and current status of women's legal rights in the U.S. It is a legal history, describing the major legal decisions that have generated and defined women's rights. The book describes these legal decisions in easy to understand language that does not oversimplify or condescend to the reader. It also puts these decisions in a social context, by discussing many of the societal events in which these legal decisions were made.

Another reviewer complained about the use of statistics in this book, but I found no such problems. There are many statistics in the book and I generally found them to be illuminating.

Overall, this is an important book that is worth the time of anybody who cares about what rights American women have and how they got them.

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Summary: Fabulous!
Review: This is the best book on women's rights I've ever read. It's very informative and helps me a lot. I learned so much that I didn't know before! Fantastic book!

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Summary: Still blindly supporting abortion
Review: Unfortuneately the author of this book is still blindly supporting abortion. She speaks as though there is some conspiracy by men in this country to strip rights from women regarding their pregnancy, yet the pro-life movement in this country is composed largely of women (in particular those who have had abortions and experienced a negative emotional or physical impact). There isn't some conspiracy out there. That couldn't be further from the truth. The last time I checked, women as well as men voted in this election and 88% of pro-life organization endorsed candidates won their seats and only 39% of the pro-choice organization's Emily's List candidates won their seats. How long are feminists like Debran Rowland going to blindly endorse unrestricted abortion? Abortion has been legal for 31 years, under the presumption that it is safer... yet abortion clinics have less safety regulations in place than veterinarian clinics or outpatient surgery centers... recent studies cite negative effects from abortion such as drug abuse, depression, suicidal tendencies, obcession with the unborn child, desire to have a child... and physical effects such as infertility, fatal infections, breast cancer, uterine tearing, among others. Some would argue that if abortion was illegal it would be much less safe, but it is a well known fact that abortions sky rocketed the moment it became legal, and the laywers behind Roe v Wade fudged the numbers of women suffering fatalities from back alley abortions. Even abortionists will tally at calling an ambulance if you happen to need emergency care after your abortion, because the last thing they need for their business is pro-lifers writing about how another woman was picked up by an ambulance outside an abortion center. Jane Roe herself even is a forerunner in the pro-life movement. Good grief. 1 out of every 3 women will have an abortion by the time they are 45. Yet no comprehensive, government studies have been done on abortions, and the pro-choice crowd always dismisses these studies done by independent organizations such as the Elliot Institute. It's women like Debran Rowland who will continue to advance the silliest argument of all: that women need unrestricted access to something as dubious and unsafe as abortion when it is increasingly linked to such negative results!