Too Little, Too Late
Changes in the Legal Status of U.S. Women

This text argues that women have yet to achieve full citizenship in the United States and most other Western democracies, and the equal rights approach is doomed to fall in achieving its stated goal of making women full citizens of the United States.

And until recently, it ignored the debilitating social conditioning of men and women in American society which accounts for the hostility of many women to feminism and the gendered views of male judges, politicians, and other leaders. Too Little, Too Late presents the setbacks and successes in American women's legal struggle over the last 200 years. The book begins with a narrative essay followed by a document section that is divided within four broad subject areas: political rights, economic rights, marital and reproductive rights, and sociocultural rights. Organized chronologically, each section contains a brief introduction describing the steady, sporadic or retrograde nature of the changes in women's legal status. This provides a comprehensive overview of the changes in each of these four major areas of women's rights that will help readers understand the documents from an historical perspective. Provocative and compelling, Too Little, Too Late will spark much debate on this important topic.