SOURCE: Meyer, Michael J. Review of Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, by Catharine A. MacKinnon. Ethics 101, no. 4 (July 1991): 881-83.

In the following review, Meyer argues that, despite its flaws, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State is a provocative, insightful, and worthwhile addition to feminist studies.

This [Toward a Feminist Theory of the State] is not an easy book to gauge. It is by turns insightful and obscure. It is quite interesting (even genuinely disturbing in a most thoughtful way), yet it is also, at times, rhetorical to the point that it seems to undermine what may be its very purposes. MacKinnon does have a real flair for style, and the book is also, with only a few exceptions, exhaustingly documented.

The book is divided into three main sections—(1) feminism and Marxism, (2) method, (3) the state—and closes with a summation of sorts entitled “Toward a Feminist...