Reviews

Feminism Without Women: Culture and Criticism in a Postfeminist Age by Tania Modleski

chirson's review against another edition

4.0

Certainly a number of points Modleski makes can be argued with, but when push comes to shove, I found her argument concerning the ease with which anti-essentialism can reinforce the existing power relations by re-framing their discussion as obsolete quite convincing (at least as a call for caution, not as a call to return to essentialism). I think some of the points she makes against Judith Butler's arguments might be refuted by Butler's later writing.

And I loved the straightforward anger at inequality and appropriation that was palpable in this book, even if I sometimes disagreed with its direction.