I chose Feminism, Femininity and the Politics of Working Women as one of two books to write on for a history course this semester. In general, I found the contents of this book fascinating. The deep dive into an area of British Woman's Suffrage I'd never heard of added an interesting perspective to my understanding of women's rights activism of the era.

If I'm being honest I'm not entirely sure how to approach reviewing this book. Mainly because I don't have the knowledge and experience to critically analyze it. I do have feelings about my reading experience, but for the most part, I have very little to say about this book's content.

I came away from this book with a deep respect for Margaret Llewelyn Davies the most prominent president of the Women's Co-Operative Guild. The nitty-gritty detailing of the grassroots work of activists of the era was also incredibly illuminating. As someone whose exposure to activism is fairly limited to modern online spaces hearing about the specific things women working for suffrage and more did for the cause was insightful. Scott's analysis of the success and downfall of the Guild was astute and her ultimate praise for the radical beliefs the institution was founded on was heartening.

However, I did find this book's framing slightly lacking. While understandable given the specific subject matter the overwhelming whiteness of this book was a tad off-putting. This book's complete lack of critical analysis for any of Davies's work also rubbed me the wrong way. Scott's inability to raise even a single negative word for the women made certain chapters of this book feel like reading fanmail rather than historiography.

In the end, this book was illuminating and useful but I definitely wouldn't recommend it to the layperson. It is a very academic text that would likely be very dull to anyone not required to analyze it for a class.