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NWSA Journal 14.1 (2002) 212-217



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Book Review

Radical Feminism:
A Documentary Reader

Dear Sisters:
Dispatches from the Women's Liberation Movement

The Politics of Women's Studies:
Testimony from Thirty Founding Mothers

Why Feminism?
Gender, Psychology, Politics


Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader edited by Barbara Crow. New York: New York University Press, 2000, 590 pp., $23.95 paper.
Dear Sisters: Dispatches from the Women's Liberation Movement edited by Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon. New York: Basic Books, 2000, 316 pp., $30.00 hardcover.
The Politics of Women's Studies: Testimony from Thirty Founding Mothers edited by Florence Howe. New York: The Feminist Press, 2000, 448 pp., $55.00 hardcover, $22.95 paper.
Why Feminism? Gender, Psychology, Politics byLynne Segal. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, 286 pp., $45.00 hardcover, $16.95 paper. [End Page 212]

Second wave U.S. feminism is over thirty years old; the first generation of second wave feminist scholars in the United States is beginning to retire, and both a new century and a new millennium are upon us. Now is a particularly good time for looking both forward toward feminism's future and backward to where second wave feminists have been. Together, the four excellent books under review accomplish both of these tasks.

Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader edited by Barbara Crow is an important collection of primary source materials from the formative period of second wave U.S. radical feminism, 1967-1975. Many of the works in the anthology originally appeared in other collections, journals, or monographs now out of print. This is revealed by the detailed and useful bibliography and list of copyright permissions. Other previously unpublished works appear as the result of Crow's careful archival research. Crow includes two valuable appendices for further study: a list of relevant archives and web sites, and a comprehensive list of radical feminist journals in circulation between 1967-1974, which alone helps us to understand the scope of radical feminism's influence during that period.

Crow uses four criteria to identify and distinguish radical feminist works from among the variety of feminisms extant during the period. A work counts as radical if: a) the author/s of the work identify themselves as radical; b) women's oppression as women is seen as the primary locus of oppression; c) consciousness-raising is identified as feminism's primary mechanism for personal and, hence, political transformation; or d) both the limitations and efficiency of several other sorts of political strategies are recognized and appreciated (2).

These features are used as points of departure in drawing together the anthology, but Crow's aim is not to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for what counts as radical feminist work, nor does she intend the collection to function as a wholesale endorsement or defense of radical feminism. She intends, instead, to demonstrate the diversity, complexity, and, indeed, contradictions inherent in radical feminism, thereby to challenge the claim that all or even most radical feminists employed an essentialist construction of the category woman or were unaware of the role played by race, class, and sexuality in the oppression of women as a group (3). To this end, Crow artfully divides the collection into two main parts: an initial section on political statements and processes, and a subsequent section focusing on what she calls the "contested sites" of lesbianism, heterosexuality, children, race, and class.

The works are representative of diverse styles and viewpoints, though, as Crow herself points out, they have an almost exclusively East Coast focus. Some of the pieces utilize academic language while others employ the refreshing and passionate vernacular of grassroots, radical activism. [End Page 213] With the exception of (substantial) passages excerpted from monographs, almost all of the works appear in their entirety. This is one of the greatest strengths of the collection and a feature that makes it particularly useful and important for students of feminism. By allowing both...

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