womanhood

Among the background figures in her purported one-woman show, however, he casts the longest shadow – a fascinating bit of embroidery on what is essentially the story of America’s relationship with womanhood.

Culter left their conversation convinced that “there was an important story to be told about American womanhood in the latter part of the 20th century, and that Martha would be a great conduit into that,” he said.

Of course, this is a very old narrative that goes back to the early days of colonial America, when white male European settlers were the protectors of white womanhood against the dangerous Native American “savages.”

She memorized poems such as “Still I Rise” as if she were “taking notes on my impending womanhood.”

Margot Mifflin is a professor at the City University of New York and the author, most recently, of “Looking for Miss America: A Pageant’s 100-year Quest to Define Womanhood.”