Reviewed by Jessica Prata Miller.

Increasingly, feminist theorists have come to recognize the importance of understanding cultural processes for analyzing women’s subordination. This is the result of several interrelated factors, including a more complex understanding of the power relations inherent in traditional areas of feminist concern such as pornography, abortion, and male violence which encompasses not only social and economic institutions and practices, but also symbolic meanings, identity formations and belief systems, a new awareness of both the interlocking specificities of oppression and the political significance of subcultures prompted by the self-assertion of marginalized women, and the impact of poststructuralist and postmodernist theories of ideology, subjectivity, sexual difference and discourse which call into question the unity of identity and the meaningfulness of the analytical category ‘woman.’ These influences have impelled feminist inquiry to examine the role of culture in the reproduction of gender inequality, while many cultural critics, similarly influenced, have investigated the ways in which a feminist analysis of gender can contribute to an understanding of culture. For philosophy courses which take these inquiries as central themes, both Free Spirits and Gender Basics are valuable resources.

In foregrounding racial, ethnic, class and sexual diversity, in featuring theorists from across the disciplines and outside the academy, and in forsaking categories of analysis familiar from both traditional philosophy and feminist theory, Free Spirits is aptly named. The editors, in their lengthy and helpful Introduction, contend that this anthology is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate courses, especially in philosophy and culture, but also, to varying degrees, in women’s studies, queer theory, and social and political theory. While they have not overstated its usefulness, I would caution that first or second year undergraduates might well find Free Spirits too difficult. Many of these first-rate essays are quite demanding, presupposing both advanced analytical skills and at least some background knowledge of the various streams of poststructuralist thought which have been influential in both feminist theory and cultural studies. Free Spirits’ first chapter, "Cultural Images," includes essays such as Susan Bordo’s "‘Material Girl’: The Effacements of Postmodern Culture," Andrew Ross’s "Cowboys, Cadillacs, and Cosmonauts...," and Kimberlé Crenshaw and Gary Peller’s "Reel Time/Real Justice," which explore how images in Madonna’s music videos, Bonanza, and videotape of the Rodney King beating are supported by cultural narratives, which, dispersed throughout interlocking networks of particular social relations, can serve to reinforce (but can also be used to decode) the racial ideologies and gender stereotypes which promote inequality. This section’s focus on images from television, movies, print advertising and rock music signals an expansion of the concept of culture beyond traditional parameters concomitant with a recognition of the pervasiveness of its influence, thus providing a compelling "opening argument" for culture’s worthiness as a subject of feminist social criticism.

Free Spirits offers an engaged version of cultural analysis which investigates how culture and political economy are interrelated, and how various cultural forms serve to structure experience, especially women’s. Moreover, the multicausal analyses of cultural ideology and hegemony which emerge from this collection of essays are balanced with an understanding of culture as political practice. The contributors insist that culture is transacted between consumers and producers, and therefore, that the reception of culture in itself (including the study of culture) helps constitute cultural meanings and political reality, and contains the potential for engaged critical intervention. An entire section devoted to "Ecofeminism," as well as Danae Clark’s "Commodity Lesbianism," Nancy Fraser’s "Struggle over Needs...," and Cynthia Enloe’s "On the Beach: Sexism and Tourism" are outstanding examples in this regard.

A major strength of this collection is its exploration of the sociopolitical relations between different subcultures, motivated by its recognition that culture is not an undifferentiated system but an area of conflict and contest over meaning, particularly between dominant and oppressed cultures. All of the essays in this collection give voice to practices and traditions which are occluded by the equation of dominant (especially male) culture with culture itself, and pursue the ways this equation can be challenged. Some, like Gloria Anzaldúa’s "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" and Elaine H. Kim’s Korean-American perspective on the Los Angeles upheavals, are more autobiographical, emphasizing the importance of self-articulation for creating possibilities for self-direction. Others, like Patricia Hill Collins’ investigation of the ways the objectification of Black women’s bodies has buttressed the practice of prostitution and Catharine MacKinnon’s essay, "Crimes of War, Crimes of Peace," which questions the power of the concept of equality that governs international law to protect women from wartime rape, are more theoretical. But they each develop and defend the insight that multiculturalism in feminist theory is not just a moral, but also an epistemological requirement-a necessary condition for understanding cultural oppression, not just completely, but at all.

Especially noteworthy about this collection is the way in which it presses beyond calling for more inclusivity in feminism to take on the challenges to this goal. The notion that categories of social analysis pick out preconstituted social groups with clear inside/outside boundaries is thoroughly problematized. The section "Community" is comprised entirely of papers which address intragroup and intergroup obstacles to feminist community, and includes María Lugones’ "Playfulness, ‘World’-Traveling, and Loving Perception," Barbara Smith’s essay on relationships between Black and Jewish women, and an instructive account of the struggles of a group of HIV-infected prison inmates to overcome their ethnic and racial differences in order to create an effective political community. Complementing this theme is "Masculinities," a fascinating series of papers which explore how culture contributes to the engendering of masculinity in men at various social locations.

I do have a few words of caution about Free Spirits. First, and this is a minor point, the reading comprehension questions at the end of each selection are not designed to engage students’ critical capacities. Second, the concluding section, "The Politics of Hope" is composed of first-person accounts of feminist activism which are, on the whole, less philosophically intriguing than their predecessors. Oddly, most of the papers in Free Spirits are so effective in theorizing cultural structures of oppression without losing sight of the need to locate subversive spaces and suggest strategies for revolutionary social change that this section seems unnecessary. Finally, Free Spirits presents a dynamic series of rhetorical, discursive, theoretical and practical strategies that resist gelling into a coherent prescription for how to do feminist philosophy of culture. A practical result is that many of the essays could fit as well into one section as another. While some instructors will find such fluidity liberating (and even necessary), it might frustrate others.

Gender Basics is intended for a first year course in social philosophy, and with sections like "Looks and Language," "Sex For Sale," and "Reproduction: Hi Tech/Low Tech," covers much of the same cultural ground as Free Spirits. According to Minas, "gender basics" are the elements of gender which are closest to experience. An issue is experientially basic if it can be investigated in terms that do not presuppose any special theoretical background. Therefore, this anthology focuses on topics, like sexuality, parenting, love, and relationships, which affect women and men in everyday personal and public life. The result is a collection of essays which serves as an excellent introduction to the study of gender as a central category of experience.

There has been some concern about the emergence of gender studies as a potential threat to feminist pedagogical goals. To the extent that gender studies is conceived as a less "politicized," less "partial," and therefore more acceptable alternative to women’s studies, this concern is well-founded. However, Gender Basics is not premised on the claim that the study of women is incomplete or insufficiently objective, but rather on the more limited claim that despite the way dominant culture has been constructed to conceal it, men are indeed gendered beings who can provide insights about their gendered experience. Gender Basics earns its subtitle by taking the oppression of women to be the major problem of gendered life.

Any doubt about this is resolved in the first section, "Oppression," which includes work by Marilyn Frye, Simone de Beauvoir, Audre Lorde, and Gloria Steinem. The thesis of Frye’s opening essay sets the tone for the rest of the anthology: "Women are oppressed, as women. ... But men are not oppressed as men." This section is an excellent, comprehensive introduction to the concept of oppression, which is designed, like the collection as a whole, to reach students who may never have thought about oppression in the context of gender, or at all. Peggy McIntosh’s piece on white privilege and male privilege illustrates well the power of the simple language of experience for articulating deeply troubling social realities. In a list of the dozens of ways in which white privilege influences her daily life, McIntosh includes "I am never asked to speak for my racial group" and "If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege." Many of the selections in Gender Basics are intended to be similarly jarring.

The fact that the essays in Gender Basics are written in a style which does not presuppose any background in philosophy or feminist theory, should not be taken to mean that they are unsophisticated. Almost all of the selections, including those which draw heavily on personal experience, are argued in a clear and compelling way, and could serve as material for basic lessons in critical thinking. Further, the essays gain added complexity from the fact that most of the authors acknowledge that as social beings, our lives, and the particular actions which comprise them, are structured by more than our own desires and wishes. For example, the chapter "Messages on the Surface: Looks and Language" is devoted to essays which investigate the ways in which "surface" phenomena like norms of beauty and figures of speech are encoded with messages which perpetuate oppressive social structures. Also noteworthy is "Youngsters and Oldsters", an unusual section devoted entirely to ageism, which includes papers which explore the complex interweaving of patriarchy and ageism, as well as the ways in which younger women oppress their elders. Gender Basics is an inclusive collection, in terms of both the theoretical perspectives and the social locations of its contributors. Each topic is represented by theorists with diverse viewpoints. The section entitled "Reproduction," for example, includes pieces by St. Thomas Aquinas on the purpose of sex, Don Marquis on why abortion is immoral, and Janet Radcliffe-Richards on why abortion should be universally permitted. Each section also includes work by theorists from marginalized groups. While this approach to diversity is less ambitious than the incorporative theorization of difference in Free Spirits, it is adequate for familiarizing readers with different perspectives. A resulting drawback of this widened scope, however, is that most of the eighty-four selections are excerpted and condensed from longer essays and are thus too short to provide students with a sense of the author’s overall perspective. This is mitigated to some extent by the fact that several theorists, such as de Beauvoir, Frye, Nozick, Radcliffe-Richards and Steinem are represented in more than one section.

• From the Editor
• About the Newsletter
• News from the Committee on the Status of Women
• From the New Chair
• Book Reviews
  • Recent Feminist Philosophy Textbooks, Reviewed by Amy Mullin
  • Free Spirits: Feminist Philosophers on Culture and Gender Basics: Feminist Perspectives on Women and Men, Reviewed by Jessica Prata Miller
  • The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory and Women, Knowledge and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy, Reviewed by Cynthia A. Stark
  • Ethics: A Feminist Reader and Living with Contradictions: Controversies in Feminist Social Ethics, Reviewed by Margaret A. McLaren
  • Hypatia's Daughters: Fifteen Hundred Years of Women Philosophers, Reviewed by Julie M. Zilberberg
• Notes on Contributors