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An excellent accompaniment to any compendium of women's issues, academic or personal, Phyllis Chesler's
Letters to a Young Feminist may at first appear to contain things we've previously heard. But have we remembered? Chesler reminds us that, while feminism (she includes women and men) may appear to have fulfilled a purpose and run its course, the issues of unequal social power and unequal treatment are still real (against both women and men). Her discussion of the "traditionally" masculine art of teamwork, in comparison to feminism's ultimate democratic goal of multiple voices making universal decisions, illustrates that problem solving and distribution of power are qualities of both approaches. Like Virginia Woolf in
A Room of One's Own, Chesler admonishes individuals to seek economic freedom. And like Rainer Marie Rilke's
Letters to a Young Poet, Chesler's book offers an introduction to feminism as well as recollections of social history.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
The New York Times Book Review, Kim France
Letters to a Young Feminist reads like an object lesson in just how large the gap really is between second-wave feminists and the women who followed them. "You are entitled to know our war stories," Chesler writes. (She makes it sound like an obligation.) But what she's failed to figure out is how to reach a generation that doesn't necessarily want to hear them.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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