The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory, Linda Nicholson, ed. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Reviewed by Cynthia A. Stark.

Those looking for texts for advanced feminist theory courses should consider two recent superb collections. The Second Wave, as the title suggests, is organized historically to give readers a sense of the evolution of feminist thought in the latter part of the twentieth century. The book opens with a section entitled "Early Statements" that includes, among others, de Beauvoir’s introduction to The Second Sex and The Combahee River Collective’s A Black Feminist Statement. The second section contains three essays on Marxist feminism, beginning with Heidi Hartmann’s landmark article, "The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism."

Part Three of the book, called "Gynocentrism," contains a somewhat eclectic mix of articles. The unifying theme of this section, which is perhaps more strained than the themes unifying the other sections, is, according to the editor, an emphasis on "the meaning of differences between women and men in terms of the unique situation and characteristics of women. . ." Nicholson identifies three ways in which this theme is expressed. One, exemplified by Catharine MacKinnon’s account of the social construction of sexuality, "stress[es] the depths of women’s oppression." The second, expressed in selections from Carol Gilligan and Nancy Chodorow, gives a more positive spin on the norms of femininity, or at least describes them in terms more neutral than MacKinnon’s account. A third expression of gynocentrism is represented by standpoint epistemology.

The fourth section of The Second Wave concerns differences among women and introduces the problematizing of the concept of woman, a theme which extends through the fifth and last section of the text, which centers on the problem of essentialism. These sections contain articles by some of the pioneering theorists in this area, including Monique Wittig, Luce Irigaray, and Gayatri Spivak.

Nicholson definitely achieves her goal of conveying the dialectic of recent feminist theory. Though I had read in the past many of the works contained in her collection, I found it illuminating to re-encounter those works presented as an evolving body of knowledge. Naturally, Nicholson has a certain interpretation of the evolution of this body.¹ Her choice of articles shows, for instance, that she is sympathetic to the critiques of liberal and radical feminism offered by post-structuralists and that she welcomes the shift in emphasis from social structures to discourse and to the nature of the self or subject. Nonetheless, the articles she has included reflect an even-handed approach. Especially worth mentioning in this context are the contributions by Linda Alcoff and Nancy Fraser. These offer excellent surveys of the main issues raised by the postmodern turn in feminist theory as well as lucid, engaging critical analysis.

The second edition of Women, Knowledge and Reality, like the first, focuses on the areas of feminist philosophy outside of value theory. The book is divided into fields of philosophy traditionally conceived: methodology, meta- physics, theory of knowledge, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind/body, and philosophy of religion. The editors’ decision to utilize this method of organization is discussed in the preface. Included also in the preface is a pedagogically useful list of themes (and corresponding articles) that cut across this organizational grid. For example, articles from many different sections of the collection concern the issues of social construction, subjectivity, rationality, sexuality, and psychoanalysis.

This edition expands upon the first edition in several ways. First it contains more articles, thereby providing more variety. (Seventeen of the essays are new; twelve from the earlier edition have been replaced.) Second, it is broader in scope in two ways: it has more essays whose authors are not credentialed as philosophers and it has more essays written by postmodernists and about postmodernism. Third, a number of the essays that have been replaced have been replaced by updated and expanded articles on the same topic by the same author. For instance, Ann Ferguson’s con-tribution, "Can I Choose Who I Am? And How Would That Empower Me? Gender, Race, Identities, and the Self," develops and elaborates upon the ideas presented in "A Feminist Aspect Theory of the Self," which appeared in the first edition. The account of the self she provides in the later essay is more sophisticated and nuanced, takes into account recent developments in post-structuralism and situates the problem of the self within the larger issue of agency under social construction-what she calls "the Determinism/ Responsibility problem." Fresh articles by Lorraine Code, Sandra Harding and Judith Butler-all contributors to the first edition-are also included.

Because Women, Knowledge and Reality provides a wide variety of perspectives on and approaches to feminist philosophy, it is bound to seem uneven to most readers; this is an asset, however, since it makes the book suitable for meeting a wide range of pedagogical needs. As my own training is in (what could be roughly called) "analytic" philosophy, I tended to find the essays written from that perspective more edifying, but not consistently so. For instance, I take Judith Butler’s "Imitation and Gender Insubordination" and Susan Bordo’s "Anorexia Nervosa: Psychopathology as the Crystallization of Culture" to be among the strongest contributions. At the same time I found the argument in Lorraine Code’s "Taking Subjectivity into Account" unconvincing (and not because I am unsympathetic to her general approach).

A final feature of the book is worth noting, which has nothing to do with the quality of its contents but should serve as a warning for teachers (or those who might want to publish with Routledge): it surely breaks all records for the number of typographical errors in a published work.

Ann Garry, Marilyn Pearsall, and Linda Nicholson have done a great service to feminist theory, and to feminist philosophy in particular, by putting together these two collections of high-caliber feminist scholarship. Beyond their utility as textbooks, these works reveal the variety, dynamism and quality of contemporary feminist thinking.

• 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