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NWSA Journal 14.1 (2002) 196-198



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Book Review

Higher Ground:
From Utopianism to Realism in American Feminist Thought and Theory


Higher Ground: From Utopianism to Realism in American Feminist Thought and Theory by Sally L. Kitch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, 308 pp., $45.00 hardcover, $17.00 paper.

Feminist theory has recently undergone serious critique. Women of color and lesbians, poor and non-Western women, whose experiences were neglected by much early, second wave feminist theorizing, have helped to transform feminist theory and activism. Today's feminist scholars are a more diverse group and their concerns are more inclusive. But also, in what has been called a backlash against feminism, some self-described feminists have argued that feminism has been stolen, or has metamorphosed into a strange world. These self-described feminists have received great attention, publishing widely read books such as Who Stole Feminism? Women Who Betrayed Women (Sommers 1994) and Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies (Patai and Koertge 1994).

In Higher Ground, a book I would recommend to graduate students and faculty in Women's Studies, Sally L. Kitch endeavors to accommodate some aspects from both sets of criticisms. She is highly critical of writers such as Christina Hoff Sommers and Camille Paglia, but supportive of the claims of others like Janet Radcliffe Richards and Daphne Patai. Indeed, in a unique and engaging addition to feminist literary discourse, Kitch shows that addressing the complaints of the so-called feminist backlash may actually help free feminism of some of the exclusions and idealizations highlighted by lesbians and women of color. The way to do this, according to Kitch, is to rid feminist theorizing of what she calls utopian thinking and to replace it with realistic feminism.

Consider Kitch's lucid and perspicacious description of utopian thinking, found first in chapter three, but also appearing throughout her discussion of utopian (including feminist) fiction and contemporary feminist theory. According to Kitch, at its extremes, utopian thinking leads to "fanatical closure, in which all explorations and questioning of beliefs are prohibited" (113). She explains, "such thinking pushes feminism dangerously close to the territory of [fundamentalist] religion" (112).

Clearly some of the criticisms of early, second wave feminism made by lesbians, women of color, and non-Western women can be seen as resulting from an early feminism that assumed it had named all significant problems (sexism, but not homophobia, colonialism, or racism); knew what or who the enemy was (men or sexists, but not racist or homophobic [End Page 196] institutions); thought that harmony and unity among women was the highest good (ignoring significant differences between women); and was susceptible to fanatical closure (interpreting critique as anti-feminist). Kitch tells us that unfortunately, current feminist theory and Women's Studies exhibit some of these same problems, albeit trying to integrate previously marginalized voices. Identity politics, which "predicates political action on identity-group membership" (137); epistemic privilege theory, which "predicates the validity of knowledge claims on the knower's identity-group membership . . . promoting the myth of the truth teller"; and "linguistic construction," the claim that "language constructs as it represents" (147) are offered as examples for where utopian thinking is lurking today.

Kitch is careful to separate feminism from utopian thinking. She writes, "[f]eminist theory can promote changes, . . . combat sexism, racism, homophobia, and related social injustices . . . without being utopian" (111). She guides the reader through contemporary non-utopian feminist treatments of difference, knowledge, and social construction. This realistic thinking assumes that the world exceeds our ability to understand it, that good and evil are far from clear, that solutions must be contextual, that we cannot know what will work in the future, that change is inevitable, and reality ambiguous. These suggestions are important and should provide some helpful signposts for future feminist theorizing and for the culture of feminism and Women's Studies.

However, all taxonomies (including Kitch's) inevitably oversimplify. For example, Kitch thinks it is not utopian to speculate about potential benefits of conceiving of "national or ethnic...

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