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Erased : What American Patriarchy Has Hidden from Us
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Overview
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - USA TODAY NATIONAL BESTSELLER - SHORTLISTED FOR THE STOWE PRIZE FOR LITERARY ACTIVISM
In Erased, Anna Malaika Tubbs, the New York Times bestselling author of The Three Mothers, returns with an unflinching excavation of all that American patriarchy has tried to destroy. Patriarchy has ruled across the world throughout much of human history, but it operates differently in each nation in which it is found. In Erased, Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs investigates how our understanding of human identity in the United States has been determined since the founding fathers' drafting of the Constitution, in which they excluded women from equal rights, protected the institution of slavery, and suppressed Indigenous belief systems. Spanning the full, unfiltered history of the nation, this groundbreaking history makes clear how deeply ingrained in politics, culture, and society our unique gendered hierarchy truly is and has been for nearly 250 years. Told with Tubbs's trademark blend of rigorous research and accessible storytelling, Erased asks readers to suspend blaming themselves or one another for the struggles we face as a country and instead turn their attention toward an inequitable system that leaves none of us unscathed. Timely and eye-opening, Erased brings hope and guidance for letting go of American patriarchy once and for all.Customers Also Bought
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781250876690
- ISBN-10: 1250876699
- Publisher: Flatiron Books
- Publish Date: May 2025
- Dimensions: 9.47 x 6.56 x 1.08 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.24 pounds
- Page Count: 384
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Reexamining the history you thought you knew can be both unsettling and astounding. In Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden From Us, Anna Malaika Tubbs succeeds in making it a worthy exploration. As the saying goes, once you see it, you cannot unsee it. In this case, “it” is patriarchy: societal control by men to harness and maintain power. “The further one is from being a white, straight, cisgendered, able-bodied man, the less their lives will be valued,” Tubbs asserts in the book’s introduction.
Tubbs is the celebrated author of 2021’s The Three Mothers, in which she revealed how the mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and James Baldwin influenced America and the world at large. In Erased, Tubbs uncovers why the stories of those women and countless others throughout recorded history do not make it into textbooks and are not commemorated. She insists that women are and have always been powerful beings, as evidenced by, for one, their ability to bear children. But patriarchy undermines this power. Tubbs demonstrates how sexist policies, laws and gender norms limit mothers’ options and support.
At every turn, Erased illuminates how our recorded history has been distorted. Tubbs asks us to consider the story of Sacagawea. The iconic painting of the Native American woman standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during their 1804 exploration of the West was even described by women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony as an example of a woman who “accomplished patriotic deeds.” In reality, barely a teenager, Sacagawea was kidnapped from her Lemhi Shoshone tribe and sold to a Frenchman before being forced to join Lewis and Clark as an interpreter. She was pregnant when they embarked; the board visible on her back in the portrait was how she carried her son for their two-and-a-half year journey, for which the Frenchman who owned her was paid a salary. Tubbs also takes a hard look at Mount Rushmore. The group of presidents—Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt—tells our story, all right, but it is one in which national patriarchs were committed to “upholding systems that keep power in the hands of white men.”
Tubbs writes that her goal with Erased was “to make American patriarchy as obvious to you as it is to me, so that together we could put our hands on it and take it apart.” Thanks to her exhaustive research and talent for storytelling, readers may be inspired to do just that.
Reexamining the history you thought you knew can be both unsettling and astounding. In Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden From Us, Anna Malaika Tubbs succeeds in making it a worthy exploration. As the saying goes, once you see it, you cannot unsee it. In this case, “it” is patriarchy: societal control by men to harness and maintain power. “The further one is from being a white, straight, cisgendered, able-bodied man, the less their lives will be valued,” Tubbs asserts in the book’s introduction.
Tubbs is the celebrated author of 2021’s The Three Mothers, in which she revealed how the mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and James Baldwin influenced America and the world at large. In Erased, Tubbs uncovers why the stories of those women and countless others throughout recorded history do not make it into textbooks and are not commemorated. She insists that women are and have always been powerful beings, as evidenced by, for one, their ability to bear children. But patriarchy undermines this power. Tubbs demonstrates how sexist policies, laws and gender norms limit mothers’ options and support.
At every turn, Erased illuminates how our recorded history has been distorted. Tubbs asks us to consider the story of Sacagawea. The iconic painting of the Native American woman standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during their 1804 exploration of the West was even described by women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony as an example of a woman who “accomplished patriotic deeds.” In reality, barely a teenager, Sacagawea was kidnapped from her Lemhi Shoshone tribe and sold to a Frenchman before being forced to join Lewis and Clark as an interpreter. She was pregnant when they embarked; the board visible on her back in the portrait was how she carried her son for their two-and-a-half year journey, for which the Frenchman who owned her was paid a salary. Tubbs also takes a hard look at Mount Rushmore. The group of presidents—Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt—tells our story, all right, but it is one in which national patriarchs were committed to “upholding systems that keep power in the hands of white men.”
Tubbs writes that her goal with Erased was “to make American patriarchy as obvious to you as it is to me, so that together we could put our hands on it and take it apart.” Thanks to her exhaustive research and talent for storytelling, readers may be inspired to do just that.