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228 the minnesota review Women's Work, Men's Property: The Origins ofGenderand Class edited by Stephanie Coontz and Peta Henderson. London: Verso, 1986. pp. 220. $32.95 (cloth); $12.95 (paper). Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts edited by Elizabeth A. Flynn and Patrocinio P. Schweickart. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. pp.306. $27.50 (cloth); $10.95 (paper). The two works Usted above, while very different in scope and intent, are alike insofar as both are elicited by contemporary feminist/socialist concerns. Both works refute the view that gender differences are a "fundamental" (i.e. unchangeable) or "natural" part of human Ufe. Both works define "gender" as a social construct which has developed historicaUy, and both share the poUtical goal ofeliminating women's oppression through the elucidation of woman's situation. This goal is formulated expUcitly as foUows. Lila Leibowitz, in the first essay of Women's Work, writes: I do not susbscribe to the [commonly held] view that the subordination of women is a "basic" part of our heritage, but share the beUef with the authors of this book that eradicating the oppression and exploitation of women is as worthwhile a goal as eradicating other forms of systemic exploitation and wiU not undermine the foundations of human society. (WWMP, p. 75) Similarly, the editors of Gender and Reading state: gender differences are not a matter merely of academic curiosity. Beyond the recognition of difference, there is the need to consider which differences are pernicious and which are salutary; which are to be modified and which are to be cultivated. (G&R, p. xxix) Or, to put it more strongly, as Schweickart does in her essay, "Reading Ourselves: Toward a Feminist Theory of Reading": Feminist criticism, we should remember, is a mode of praxis. The point is not merely to interpret Uterature in various ways; the point is to change the world. We cannot afford to ignore the activity of reading, for it is here that Literature acts on the world by acting on its readers. (G&R, p. 39) Beyond these similarities, Women's Work and Gender andReading have another, equally important feature in common: the first is unknowingly an example of the main premise of the second. That is to say, even though the authors of Gender and Reading concern themselves mainly with the effea that gender (and the gendered perspective) can have on the reading of Uterature, their theories could be appUed to the reading or interpretation of any type of text. The main premise of Genderand Reading is that most women are Ukely to read and ¡nterpra differently than men, not because they are biologkaUy different, but because they have been acculturated differently. These authors are quick to point out that the different consciousness inherent in differently gendered reading is a learned characteristic, and it therefore is capable, in principle, of being acquired by either sex. Another important point is that because formerly the male viewpoint has been considered universal, in the course of their education most women have learned to adapt their viewpoint to this "generic mascuUne"; it is only with the advent of the feminist perspective that women (and some men) have begun to recognize the vaüdity of female-centered readings or views. I wiU discuss these ideas further below; for now I would Uke to focus on Women's Work and the way it exempUfies the premise of Gender and Reading. The feminist anthropologists and historians whose essays appear in Women's Work have taken the data or "texts" of their two fields, and have "read" those texts as only a feminist would or could. That is, unlike many previous scholars in the field, the authors of Women's Reviews 229 Work recognize in the data the significance ofwomen's experience, drawing their conclusions based on evidence which does not exclude female data. Of course, the "readings" of these feminists are often in direct opposition to those of well-known experts like anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss or sociobiologist Edmund O. Wilson, yet, as the authors of Gender andReading show, this opposition does not automaticaUy imply that the conclusions of Women's Work are wrong. On the contrary, these new readings...

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