Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions, Third Edition

Donovan knows what she's talking about in this book. Generally understudied academic research is organized into one volume. But because of the depth which she delves into her area, it's not a good choice for an "Intro to Women's Studies" course. You're going to have to set aside some time to get through a chapter. Easily dispelling the notion that women's studies is light reading material, the material is substantive.

I read the book over a decade ago, the 1985 edition. I still regard it as a great introduction to feminist theory. The book was very condensed and so not easy to read at times, as Donovan tried to compress a review of like 200 books plus historical details into some 200 pages, necessarily making the review highly abstract. But it was very worth it precisely for the breadth. It was also very good for reference because she seems to have read every piece of feminist writing ever produced. The greatest strength of the book, I think, is in her classification: liberal, cultural, marxist, psychoanalytic, existential, radical and contemporary cultural feminism. It clarifies a lot of non-sense in the media, since the attack on feminists by conservatives frequently devolves around a confusion between liberal and cultural feminism. I think the best way to classify feminist theories, however, is to make two fundamental orientations, liberal feminism and cultural feminism, and then subsume all theoretical sub-orientations (marxist, psychoanalytic, existentialist, radical, semantico-structural, and the care-ethic type) under cultural feminism as its diversification. That is a suggestion. Another thing about feminist theory is that it is very peculiarly Modern and Western, and more specifically American. The subtitle "The Intellectual Traditions of American Feminism" is very signficant, and this cultural and epochal relativity is an essential aspect of feminist theory that should be explored. Also the relationship -- or rather the disjuncture -- between feminist theory and women's movement is not explored. While many women are breaking glass ceilings in American society, very little of them have any knowledge of "feminist theories", and the theorists themselves, mostly working at universities, are getting loftier in their theoretical world. The most impact they made seems to be in the restructuration of universities, but not beyond. This is a very interesting phenomenon that, along with the first, should receive some attention in such a comprehensive introduction as Donovan's.