A friend handed me The Fenwomen saying, "I thought you might be interested." Well, sort of? I doubt I would have picked up the book on my own, but I don't regret reading it. There are three (maybe more?) layers to my interest -- one is to do with the content, the actual study of the women of a village in the fens of East Anglia, the second is the timing--in the seventies Women's studies were new and exciting, ground-breaking even but also critical for capturing information soon to be lost. The third interest is looking at the book fifty years into women's studies. So, to the first: for Chamberlain to successfully coax the women of Gislea (which I could not find on a map) to talk to her was a remarkable achievement and not without cost, as it turned out as some smart-aleck reporter/reviewer (I'd like to use a harsher word) put in a newspaper header: "Villagers Reveal all their Love Secrets" which made the villagers feel betrayed and Chamberlain to feel terrible. The book got the wrong attention. (By the way there are no love secrets whatsoever.) Second, Chamberlain's timing was, as with collectors of folk tales and music, critical. In the seventies there were many women still living who remembered the 'old ways' vividly, a few born in the previous century. A few too, still lived more or less as they always had in 'clunch' cottages (stone built, on the ground, simple) with no indoor plumbing although I think, by then, all had electric. And the younger women are living recognizably in 'our' contemporary world, a rural environment but nonetheless. So there is a full view, as these older women lived much as women had for generations. Many of these older women, dependent on tiny pensions from their husbands and too old to cope with newfangled stuff, were lonely and living in relative poverty, but without the cohesion of an isolated village community (which has its goods and bads) to support them. Lastly, I have tried to reflect on what, if anything, the fifty years of inquiry into the everyday lives and reflections of women has done to change perceptions and to improve understanding. Is it certainly? Or only maybe? Are things truly better? Much is gained for women with roads and cars and electric and so on, but to me, isolation is still a factor for women, especially older ones, and the turmoil of child-raising, the guilt and the necessities are still mostly burdening the women. To me, the whole edifice of women's lives is still precarious depending more on a smoothly running economy and law than on men actually believing women should be regarded, treated, respected as they expect for themselves. Sorry to be so negative, but there you have it. I'm not reviewing the book, but sharing my own thoughts. The book itself was thought-provoking though I don't think anyone needs to run out and find it unless your field or primary interest is women's studies.**** ( )

After living in an East Anglian village, Gislea, for a few years, Chamberlain wrote a book about life there. It is told primarily through interviews with the women. It is a heartbreaking, enthralling tale of desperate poverty, generation long prejudices, and familial warmth. Most of the interviews talked about the back breaking labor, lack of intellectual opportunities, and loneliness of living in the fen. This was written in the 1970s, and so many of the subjects remember back to life at the turn of the 19th century. ( )