This book explores gender debates amongst Catholic laywomen in 1960s and 1970s America; its central contribution is to subvert overdrawn binaries between radicalised feminists and dutiful housewives by illustrating the sheer breadth and vibrancy of these debates amongst committed Catholic women who did not identify as feminists. Mary J. Henold approaches her subject by exploring the trajectories of five separate US Catholic women's organisations: the Theresians, a ‘tiny’ activist group founded in 1961 to foster religious vocations; the National Council of Catholic Women, a US-wide umbrella organisation founded in 1920; Marriage, a Catholic magazine founded in 1959; and the Daughters of Isabella and the Catholic Daughters of America, close-knit sororities founded respectively in 1897 and 1903. There is also consideration of the World Union of Catholic Women's Organisations. Henold's account is based upon detailed archival research, conducted chiefly within those organisations’ own archives, but no use is made of oral history, which makes this book more a history of active Catholic laywomen than of Catholic laywomen in general. Henold's research sheds considerable light on the important and to some extent inadvertent impact of Vatican II on US Catholic gender identities, which had previously been dominated by complementarianism; by calling for the empowerment of the laity, the council subverted Catholicism's existing gendered hierarchy between male priests and laywomen, triggering a widespread intellectual ferment within Catholicism that was enriched but not created by the impact of feminism. Henold's emphasis throughout the book is on Catholic laywomen's own agency, and how this agency created a highly complex debate, with each of her central organisations taking a distinctive trajectory. Despite this nuance, the book's central narrative is left unprovincialised: its mostly American protagonists are portrayed as remaking Catholic womanhood in general rather than American Catholic womanhood in particular, and the discussion often internalises 1960s Western ideological visions of ‘the modern world’ rather than historicising them. The book could also use a conclusion, in addition to the present-focused epilogue. These cavils do not alter the fact that Henold has written a valuable and informative book on an important subject. It is recommended reading for anyone interested in Christianity and gender in the American sixties.