The seventeen essays reprinted in this anthology address the ways in which western women have experienced the twentieth century. These writings go beyond the standard categorizations of gender, class, race, and ethnicity by providing a deeper understanding of women and distribution of power through examinations of generations, family and career, religion, sexual orientation, geography, and political preferences. The analysis that emerges is of an increasingly complex mix of experiences, some continuous from the nineteenth century and others unique to modernity, but all powerfully shaping how women lived in the West during the past century.