Review: A Serious Case of Dj Vu Author(s): Ruth Rosen Reviewed work(s): Setting a Course: American Women in the 1920's by Dorothy

Brown The Grounding of Modern Feminism by Nancy F. Cott Survival in the Doldrums by Leila J. Rupp ; Verta Taylor Source: The Women's Review of Books, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Dec., 1987), pp. 1+3-4 Published by: Old City Publishing, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4020157 Accessed: 21/09/2009 12:57
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ocp. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Old City Publishing, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Women's Review of Books.

http://www.jstor.org

1
VoI.V,no.3

Di

i ,

December

1987

$1.50

A of

Serious Case D?j? Vu

by Ruth Rosen
When the women's movement erupted in the late sixties, feminists knew little of their own history. The search for a usable past brought the discoveryof many heroines and the revelation that the Suifrage campaign had been the longest reform movement in American history, but the history of feminism in the twentieth century appeared one oddly episodic and elusive. Nearly every same tired litany: the women's repeated the rights movement, conceived in the nineteenth century as a broad attack against men's privilege,narrowedinto a single-issue successful campaign for suffrage by 1920. Then American feminists went home, fell asleep for 40 years and mysteriously that awakenedin thiemid-sixties to disCover suffragehad not alteredwiomen'seconomic, social, sexuai or political lives. It was a simple story that made manv feminists proud to be among the newly awakened. But the very simplicity of tlhe myth of the great 40-year lull obscured women's extraordinary participation in a broad range of voluntarist activities during the intervening decades: protective legislation for women and children,union organizing; peace and disarmamentcampaigns and the fight against fascism. In recentyears,historians have begun filling out this story. What has remained hidden is the history of feminism itself. These three books explorethe origins and continuities of feminism in the twentieth century. As weary residents of the mideighties, eye-witnessesto successiveand sucSetting a Course: American Women in the 1920's, by Dorothy Brown. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987, 302 pp., $18.50 hardcover. The Groundingof Modern Feminism, by Nancy F. Cott. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987, 384 pp., $29.95 hardcover. Survival in the Doldrums, by Leila J. Rupp and Verta Taylor.New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, 282 pp., $19.95 hardcover.
continued on p. 3

Special supplementaledition to UAW-CIO ?mmunition, August 1944. From Genderat Work:The Dynamics of Job Segregation by Sex During WorldWarII by Ruth Milkman, reviewedinside by Dorothy Sue Cobble.

Inside:

Nan

Goodman

and

Maureen

Reddy:

CHILDREN'S BOOKS

Julia
THE

Pe-nelope:
INTERGALACTIC WICKEDARY

Margaret
Martha Nell

Randall:
Smith:

GLORIA
EMILY

ANZALDUA
DICKINSON

Laura

Woliver:

HIGH-TECH CONCEPTION

ard

mtore

continuedfrom p. I cessful attacksupon feminism, we sorely need historical perspective on its cyclical rhythms and knowledgeof how feministshavesurvived the "doldrums."The past is chilling but instructive. Setting a Course: American Womenin the 1920'sis a newaddition to G. K. Hall's seriesof monographson Americanwomen in the twentieth century. None of these books, to my mind, has been a "good read":they are rushed surveys, useful introductions filled with names, facts and dates, with little by way of challenging historical interpretation. Within these confines, Dorothy Brown offers a rather readable and well-organized contribution to the series. If thereis any centralargument,it is Brown'sconvictionthat "Inno other decadeof the twentieth century, until the 1970's, have women been so at the center of the major issues." Historians of the suffrage movement and the Progressiveera may quiver at these words, but Brown persuasively argues that women of the 1920splayeda centralrole, both privately and publicly, in the battles that accompaniedAmerica'sculturaltransformation from a society dedicated to production, the work ethic and absolute values, to a prosperous nation dependenton consumption, leisure and ethical relativism.Rural,"dry," xenophobic and racist elements fought an ascendant ethnic America for political and urban,"wet," culturalpower.As today, women felt they had much to gain or lose in that struggle. One Issue Brown highlights is the generational conflict that divided feminists during the 1920s. Pioneer suffragists confronted a younger generation who sneeredat feminists' personal loneliness and sought to "haveit all" by seeking personal and cultural freedoms. Brown explains: The determinedpioneers expected to sacrificemarriagefor profession; the next generation, in their thirties and forties in 1920, strainedto have a career and marriage.If forced to choose between the two, they frequentlykept the career.The young generation, entering the professions during the decade, also hoped to "haveit all," but from a began to discoverthe "rewards material success that must be accomplished at the expense of love." (p. 147) Reading about the fate of feminism in the 1920scan bringon a seriouscase of dej? vu. By mid-decade, the early vigor of feminism had been eroded by the growingconservatismand complacency of both Congress and society, the persistent stereotyping of feminists as vinegar-facedshrews"and the "hard-favored, indifferenceof the younger generation. While Brown provides a good synopsis of the many voluntaristactivities pursuedby female social reformers, Setting a Course is necessarily short on the history of feminism itself.

WHATIS FEMINISM?
COME AND FIND OUT MASS MEETING FIRST FEMINIST
attte PEOPLE-S INSTITUTE. CooperUm

1 Tueday Evening. February 7th. 1914. at 8 oclock. P. M.

Sab1ec?-WHAT FEMINISMMEANS TO ME.' Tee-Mu,eSpbo. by CREEL CEORCE ROSEYOUNG JESSELYNCHWIWIAMS MRS.FRANKCOTHREN FLOYDDELL RODMAN HENRIETTA BENEDICT EASTMAN CEORCEMIDDLETON CRYSTAL EDWINBJORKMAN FRANCES PERKINS MAX EASTMAN WILLIRWIN HOWE. aa. MARIEJENNEY

SECOND FEMINISTMASS MEETING

at te PEOPLES- INSTITUTE. CooperUaa

Friday.FeNry

2Oth, 1914. at 8 o'clock.P. M.

Subjent -BREAKING INTO THE HUMAN RACE TheRah ta Wet.DORR RHETA CHILDE t M e H Petit.te Th*Rie FORBESROBERTSON.HAL. BEATRICE Ihe Ritio meNeC.oe~.MARY SW. TIe Re lM H N... FOLA LA FOULET ROS? SCHNEIDERMAN. The Ri&tioa e..^ ?~ NINA WILCOX PUTNA. I % H..hd" .,e Rinko eeal. CHALOTt PEICNS CILMAFt HOW. JENNEY ~ MARIE ALSSION FRtE& NO COLLEC770N.

Handbill for Feminist Mass Meeting, 1914.

From The Grounding of Modern Feminism. that we must turn to Nancy Cott's splendid new study of feminism in the 1910s and 1920s. Cott, a distinguished pioneer in the field of women's history, has a deservedreputationfor reshapingour historical perspectiveby asking tough questions and answering them with grace and thoughtfulness. In her new work, she exploresthe origins of the paradoxes that have plagued modern feminism -all of them painfully familiar. How can women obtain an equality that takes into account fundamentaldifferencesbetween the sexes? How can feminism reconcile the promiseof individualisticself-fulfillmentwith the gendersolidaritythat is needed to promote individualachievementin the firstplace?How can feministsachievea necessaryunity that incorporateswomen'svast diversityof interests? And finally,how can feminismresolvethe contradiction that gender consciousness is necessary to demand an end to prescribedgender roles? Cott begins by reminding us that the nineteenth century's "woman movement"mainly avoided these paradoxes. Nineteenth-century women could and did describe their movement in the singularbecause women who ventured outside the home by and large saw themselves as part of the same "woman's sphere." Individualismdid not threatengender solidarity because suffragists and female reformers regarded their public activity as public service,ratherthan as a path to individual self-fulfillment. As for the issue of difference, Cott persuasivelyargues that suffragists used whateverargumentworked.When it was advantageous to emphasize women's natural rightto citizenship,and thus their similarityto men, they did so. When it was useful to point

For

out women's moral superiority,to raiseexpectations of what women would accomplish with suffrage,they did that too. And, for the most part, they believed both. Cott's most penetratingrevelationsdescribe the birth of modern feminism in the United States. During the teens, when the suffrage movement funneledall of its resourcesinto the campaign for the vote, a group of radical women began calling themselves Feminists (which they always capitalized). In 1912, a small group of 25 New York women formed Heterodoxy, a prototypical consciousnessraisinggroup that requiredeach member"not to be orthodox" in her opinions. To these young and adventurous women, Feminism promised self-fulfillment, encouraged erotic satisfaction and demanded of its participants radical criticism of the culture at large. Here was the New Woman, concerned with selfdevelopment, not self-sacrifice. Here were women who claimed no female superior moralitybased on sexual purity.Many suffragists shunned them. As one young woman explained, "All Feministsare suffragists,but not all suffragistsare feminists."To these radjcal bohemians, advocates of birth control and erotic adventures, "Inauthenticity seemed a greaterdangerthan sexual exploitation."Naturally,such a bohemian and radicalversionof feminism appealed to a limited number of women. Much of Cott's book is dedicated to explainingwhat happenedto the severalvarieties of feminism during the 1920s. Her point of departureis the National Woman'sParty,the militantsuffragistgroup led by the charismatic and domineering Alice Paul. The National Woman's Party, she argues, gave feminism a political and organizational dimension. An advocate of single-issue politics, Paul early decided women needed some kind of Equal Rights or "blanket" constitutional amendment to secure economic and legal equality. Her single-minded commitment to that goal meant she avoided the topic of birth control, regarded black women's disenfranchisement as a "diversionaryand divisive"issue, skirted the peace campaigns and fought bitterly with advocates of protective legislation. The net effect was that the National Woman's Party lost many of its potential members, divorced feminismfrom other social and political issues that affectedwomen, and erasedfrom the feminist agenda the radicalissues that Heterodoxy had introduced during the teens. While the NWP took up the cause of equal rights, other former suffragists organized themselvesinto a vast network of women's organizations. One of the bitter truths of the twenties is that at the very moment that feminism fell into disrepute, women's organizations mushroomed. The new League of Women Voters, the National Consumer's Leagues, the Business and Professional Women's Clubs, the National Congress of Parents and Teachers,the American Association of University Women all worked to promote their specific causes. Often they formed

coalitions to pass legislationor to promotedisarmament and pacifism. But there was no longer a "womanmovement." As the decade wore on, all sorts of women felt increasinglyuncomfortable calling themselves feminists. Many radicals, especially those who had worked long and hard for sexbased protectivelegislation, wished to dissociate themselvesfrom the narrowgoal set by the NWP. In the aftermathof the Bolshevik revolution, patriotism was equated with military preparedness.Through effective red-baiting, right-wing women and men neutralized the dozens of women's peace groups by accusing feminists of communist sympathies. To professional women, feminism seemed at odds with the "empiricism,rationality,impersonality, and collegially determined standards"of law, medicine and academia. To the young, feminism seemed old-fashioned and dowdy. Women split over many pressing issuesprotective legislation versus equal rights, disarmament versus military preparedness,Prohibition versus repeal, even "lifestyle"issues. Cott is especially skillful at contrasting the competing world-viewsthat informed different women's groups. Advocates of sex-based legislation viewed women as "overburdened and vulnerable,"stressed women's difference and emphasized their need to work. In contrast, the NWP, and many career women, viewed women as "eagerand robust,"stressed their similarity to men and socio-historical construction of gender,and emphasizedtheir preferenceto work. Women also divided by age. For women born after 1900, the world looked different. They experienced more premarital sex and viewed sexual expressionas a sourceof emancipation rather than as a drain on one's resources. Youngwomen who came of age in the 1920s were barragedby experts who advised them to adopt a newly packaged traditional femininity. Psychologists, already influenced by Freud,triedto "adjust" women to theirdestiny. Experts' apotheosis of the heterosexual companionate marriagenow made independent women and female homosocial relations seem abnormal. Child experts warned new mothers to provide a rich and nourishing environment for their children. As Cott comments, The culture of modernity and urbanity absorbed the messages of Feminismand re-presentedthem. Feministintents and rhetoric were not ignored but appropriated. Advertisingcollapsed the emphasis on women's range and choice to individual consumerism;the socialpsychological profession domesticated Feminists'assertion of sexual entitlement to the arena of marriage. (p. 174) Unnerving echo from the past: in 1919, a group of female literaryradicalsin Greenwich Village founded a new journal that, they declared,would be "pro-woman without being anti-man." They called their stance "postfeminist."

-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WOMEN OF THE LEFT BANK KINSHIP TaKINGSHIP Gender Hierarchyand State Paris, I9oo-I940
By Shari Benstock HI
jfnGSHIP 'Womenof the Left Bank is perhaps the most exciting book I've held in my hands all fall. It details and describes the lives (and relationships) of a community of women in Paris that strongl! parallelsthe femi(igoo-ig4o) nist writing, publishing, thought-shaking of communitN! our own tlmes." News -Feminist Bookstore s Now availablein paperback, Shari Benistock critically acclalmed best-selling Womenof the Left Bank is a fascinatinigexploration of the lives and work of some two dozen American, English, and Frenichwomen whose talent shaped the Paris expatriateexperience in the centurv's earlI vears.
$12.95 paperback $26g95 hardcover

LAURA GILPIN An Enduring Grace

By MarthaA. Sandweiss
"The book is extraordinarilyhandsome and weil designed; each of the I20 tritone reproductions and 7 color plates reflects the considerable care with which Gilpin preparedher original prints.... Highly recommended." hoice This highl acelaimedbiographv of Laura Gilpin is now availablein paperback. $39 95 paperback $750oo hardcover

Formation in the Tongan Islands By Christine Ward Gailey

A fascinating ethnohistorical studv examining in detail how and whv gender relations become skewed when classes and the state emerge in a societ. A major contribution to social history, Kinshipto Kingshipwill be of immense importance to students of women's studies.
$1295 paperback $285

hardeover

LA URA GILPI\N

or Available in bookstores from

u vUniversity

AUSTIN, TEXAS 78713 _BOX789 FOR ORDERS CALL TOLL-FR.EE 1(890)2S25

of TexasPress
0

The Women's Review of Books / Vol. V, No. 3 / December, 1987

Ruppand Taylorarescrupulouslycarefulto avoid a hagiographic history of 1950s femiWM?N'S PLACE~N UMB EP, nists. On the positive side, they emphasize the NWP's central role in keeping feminism alive by keeping the Equal Rights Amendment on the national political agenda. When feminism did re-emerge, the NWP was there to offer valuable resources and expertise. But feminism had also narrowedinto a rather meanspirited and reactionary political vision. Although feminists were repeatedlyattacked as pro-communist, Alice Paul and many of her SLWE JOIN THE ENTLEMEN ? MaiR~ followersin fact sympathizedwith McCarthyg anAble-bodiedGid wD I"_ ism. Theyalso avoidedallianceswith labor unAr. Paunts For? Wastin,a Wo m ions, civil rightsorganizations,or other liberal | >. l KvNwOOD WILUIM. HaSL groups. Racist and anti-semitic attitudes Shall We Have a Child? H?LBIl affected their politics and everydayparlance. rHANGING ]1~ One feminist matter-of-factlyended a letterto 1MARRIAGE I zw MID U' t [SMt CM.HINKLLM. B a friend with the words, "Yours for Race THE WIFt-^ND-MOTHU.JOB iw ~~ purity." TO *UPPOP.T A tAMILV lo~s$^) Fov8K w~ Survival in the Doldrums, superbly docuof issueof theSurvey Cover special magazine, mented and rich in historicaldetail, tells a fasDecember 1926.FromTheGrounding 1, of cinating and instructivestory of what happens Feminism. Modern when feminism becomes segregated from By the end of the twenties the "woman other progressive movements. It also shows us how embattled feminists used their netmovement" had disappeared, feminism had been substantivelyaltered, and in their place works to help survive periods of extreme competing groups of women battled for culanti-feminism. Less convincing is the subtitle, The American Women'sRights Movement, tural and legislative dominance. Rather than 1945-1960.Did Alice Paul and her followersin simply judging these changes a failure, Cott the NWP reallyconstitute a movementor simpersuasivelyarguesthat the fragmentationof ply an organization? Even less convincing is the 1920s was the predictableoutcome of the the authors'relianceon resourcemobilization suffrage campaign. Once the vote was won, women felt free to join the political process, theory, a fashionable sociological theory that links the success or failure of social movebut no longer as a "woman movement." Although the individualism let loose by the first ments to their access to economic and techniwave of feminism "produced outstanding cal resources. Resource mobilization theory helps explain what a social movement can obmodels of individual accomplishment, it tain or provide,but it cannot explainwhy femicould not engender a program for change in the position of women as a group." In effect, nism became so reactionary by the 1950s. the unfulfilledvision of one generationcreated These are minor quibbles, however,about an important and much welcomed contribution the agenda for the next wave of feminism. to the history of feminism in the twentieth B in efore feminismre-emerged the 1960sit century. enduredsome dark and drearydecades. While history rarely repeats itself, these Leila Rupp and VertaTaylor'sengaging books raiseprovocativequestions about femistudy, Survival in the Doldrums, explores the nism in our own time: How should we judge 1950s, the proverbiallow point for twentieth- the contemporary assimilation and fragmencentury feminism. By then, feminism had be- tation of feminism? How can a progressive feminism best surviveperiods of extremeconcome synonymous with the autocratic Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party. Most servatism?How should we react to the younof the NWP membershipwereformersuffrag- ger generation's indifference or outright ists, an elite band of women who sustained hostility to feminism? And how can we best each other through their political and friend- deal with the paradoxesthat run throughmodship networks, sometimes living together as ern feminism?There are lessons, not answers, friends or lovers. to be learned from these books. O

1
Dear Editor: I am an admirerof BarbaraBergmannand her work. I do not know Mechthild Hart, who reactedso strongly in the September [Vol. IV, #12] issue to the reviewof Bergmann'sbook, TheEconomic Emergenceof Women[Vol.IV, #9, June 19871, I was sufficientlyimpressed but with what she had to say to clip her letter. Bergmann [Letters, Vol. V, #2, November 1987] finds her using "Marxistbuzwords" to dismiss the importance of issues like fair access to jobs, child support payments, comparableworth. I understandHart to be saying that our program for equality must take into consideration, first, that much of the world's work is unpaid household and caring labor and, in the third world, subsistence farming. Most of this workis done by women and is economically "valueless" "invisible." and This fact explains (to me, at least) why all the parental leave in the world won't achieve equality for women in the paid labor market. That is onepoint. The second is that the fulltime paid labor market as we understandit is on the way out. Mass unemployment is a permanent featureof most of the countries of the world. In the US, part-time, temporary and contract jobs without security, continuity, healthbenefitsor a futurearereplacingpermanent employment. One quarter of the workforce in this country already works in jobs of this kind, according to today's Boston Globe (Nov. 3, 1987). This is the world of work in which women are going to be looking for "equality." What should we be doing? Obviously we need to start rethinking our definitions of work and value and what the social rewards should be for the unpaid work that women have alwaysdone and more and more men are going to be doing. Suggestions along these lines seem to get feminists'back up. They feel it is a betrayalof our commitmentto ERA, day care and parental leave, and have left these considerations to alternativeeconomists. In Vancouver severalthousand people are making use of a system called LETS that enables them to exchangelabor for creditsthat can be applied against services supplied by other subscribersto the system. In Florida legislation has been introduced that would permit older citizens-to earn credits by performing needed community services,enabling them to receiveservicesthey need but cannot affordin return. The VolunteerService Act which has been introduced in the House would make such programspossible on a federal scale. Can we learn anything from these efforts? Why aren't we campaigning for Social Security credits for homemakers and caregivers? These are some of the thoughts that Mechtild Hart's letter brought to my mind.

One of the major contributionsof this journal to feminist theory was its analyses of gender as a political, hence temporary,division. By showing that the so-called differencesbetween the sexes are the result of relationships of domination in which the class of men represent the norm to which the class of women must conform, Questions F?ministes also brought out the oppressivenessof heterosexuality as a social system that maintainsthe gender dichotomy to justify these unequal relationships.In an articleentitled"Oneis Not Born A Woman,"Monique Wittig emphasizes the importance of lesbianism as an ideology which helps us to liberate ourselves from the prison of gender. Histoires du M.L.E by Anne Tristan and Annie de Pisan, pr?f. Simone de Beauvoir (Paris:Calmann-L?vy,1977)is a moving testimonial to the importanceof lesbianismin the first decade of the Mouvement de Lib?ration des Femmes. Narrated by two activists who used pseudonyms to weave their own story with those of the Movement, one of them explains how her position of leadership in the MLF influenced her to become a lesbian and how this transformationenabledher to reconcile her personal relationshipswith her feminist theory. Because the review by Claire Moses of recent English-languagebooks on the Women's Liberation Movement in France presents French feminism as if it had never been touched or nourished by the analyses and insights of the radicallesbians, it does not give a sense of the tumultuous history of the MLF before 1981when the lesbians separatedfrom the Movement. Making these connections reminds us, moreover,that "the personal is political." Sincerely, Marthe Rosenfeld Fort Wayne,IN Claire Moses responds: I welcome Marthe Rosenfeld's comments and believe they underscorethe central point of my review:that therearemany areasimportant to an understandingof French feminism that have not yet been effectivelydealt with in the English-language literature.The issue of lesbianism in MLF politics is complex. Duchen'scontribution, although brief, was to set forth the conflict between radical lesbians who "posed that heterosexualityseemed... a choice ... antagonistic to feminist commitment. . . "(theirwords;see "Letterto the feminist movement," in French Connections, p. 85), and radical feminists who "rejectthe obligatorylinkingof a critiqueof heterosexuality with the condemnation of heterosexual women"("Extractfrom editorialof Nouvelles in QuestionsF?ministes," FrenchConnections

Books from New Victoria [HAWT[HORN L6?1C UNDER T]HIJE

by Ellen Frye
1ii
-

7.95

The story of the relationshipbe-

JLI

tween two women who are searching for roots and connections-Edie for a daughter given up for adoption, Anabelle for her birth mother.

"Frye's images don't astound the reader with their eloquence. They work unobtrusively, and, like good welding
tools in an expert's hands, they leave no seams.... LookUnder

is theHawthorn a well-told story with a strong heart." Susanna Sturgis, Sojourner And A New Stoner McTavish Novel GRAY MA?2EC bv Sarah Dreher
"The old woman who now called herself Siyamtiwa rubbed the chill from her aching fingers and squinted toward the south. One comes from the south, she knew, and one from the east. The south walker is ka-Hopi, this much the spirits had told her. No peace, no beauty, no harmony in that one. And the other-the other a stranger, with much to learn. Too much, maybe, and not enough time."

p. 82).Butmostcertainly issuedeserves the attentionbeyondthis discussion the spliton of the board of Questions F?tministes.AngloAmerican feminists -removed fromthe perTothe Editor: sonalanimosities clearlyplayed rolein that a to As a former subscriberto Questions thesplit-could bebestpositioned examine and F?ministes 1 found"French Feminism's For- thetheory, not justthe split.1fullyagree Rosenfeld suchanexaminathat tunes" by Claire Goldberg Moses [Vol. V, #1] withMarthe educational for two reasons. By bringing out tioniis veryimportant.
the activist side of the Mouvement de Lib?ration desFemmes (MLF), Moses challengesthe Anglo-American image of contemporary Frenchfeminismas a debatingsociety of ivory towerintellectuals;by revealingthe greedytactics of Psychanalyse et politique, she demolishes the argumentof earlierAmerican studies of French feminism which viewed that group as the embodiment of the "new"feminism in France. Nevertheless,while Moses providesa wealth of information about the various groups which calledthemselvesMLF,I feel that something is missing here. For example one would never guess from reading the reviewof Claire Duchen's Feminism in France that lesbianism has been an important issue within the radical faction of the MLF. If Duchen does not dwell on this subject in her book, she shows at least that lesbianism is not only a form of sexuality but also apolitical strategy.Moses on the other hand simply mentions the subject in passing when she reviews Duchen's translations of documents entitled French Connections, and only when she raises the question of the split within the ex-collective of Questions F?ministes.

Sincerely, HildaScott Cambridge, MA

8.95

j'

Stoner and Gwen head to New Mexico, but a peaceful vacation with Stoner's friend Stell turns frightening when Stell falls ill with a mysterious disease and Stoner finds herself an unwitting combatant in the great struggle between the Hopi spirits of good and evil. Order from New Victoria Publishers PO box 27, Dept. L Norwich, Vermont 05055

z49l-~491-410
GRAPHIC DESIGN TYPESETTING PRINTING 1OMagazine Street Cambridge, MA 02139
(Magazine and Green Streets, Central Square)

The Women's Review of Books / Vol. V, No. 3 / December, 1987