Author: Jill Lepore
Title: The Secret History of Wonder Woman
Narrator: Jill Lepore
Publication Info: Random House Audio (2014)
Previously Read by Same Author:
Summary/Review:
The story of Wonder Women begins as a creation of William Moulton Marston, a something of a quack psychologist previously known for inventing the lie detector test. Marston worked closely with his wife Elizabeth Hollaway and Olive Byrne who lived with them in a long-term relationship (and continued living with Holloway after Martson’s death). Through Byrne they were also connected to her aunt Margaret Sanger who looms large in this book and the history of Wonder Woman. Lepore shows how the triad’s interests in feminism and unconventional sexuality are expressed through Wonder Woman comics which contains themes of ruling with feminine love and bondage and submission. Lepore relates an interesting history of Marston, Hollaway, Byrne, Sanger, and others in the women’s rights movements of the 20th century, and Wonder Woman’s unexpected role in the center of it all.
Recommended books: The Mad World of William M. Gaines by Frank Jacobs, Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories by Pagan Kennedy
Rating: ***
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