Focusing on Petersburg, Virginia, Professor Lebsock is able to demonstrate and explain how the status of women could change for the better in an antifeminist environment. She weaves the experiences of individual women together with general social trends, to show, for example, how women's lives were changing in response to the economy and the institutions of property ownership and slavery.
By looking at what the Petersburg women did and thought and comparing their behavior with that of men, Lebsock discovers that they placed high value on economic security, on the personal, on the religious, and on the interests of other women. In a society committed to materialism, male dominance, and the maintenance of slavery, their influence was subversive. They operated from an alternative value system, indeed a distinct female culture.
- ISBN10 0393017389
- ISBN13 9780393017380
- Publish Date 17 February 1984
- Publish Status Inactive
- Out of Print 17 September 2008
- Publish Country US
- Imprint WW Norton & Co
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 352
- Language English