SOURCE: Sterk, Helen M. Review of Fire with Fire, by Naomi Wolf. Christian Century (13–20 July 1994): 694–95.

In the following review, Sterk offers an unfavorable assessment of Fire with Fire.

We have met the enemy, and she is us. This is Naomi Wolf's message to women, especially feminists. Wolf tells women that they are “suffering from too much subordination for no more pressing reason than that we have stopped short of compelling it to end.” Ignoring the history of gender relations in the West, Wolf says all will be well if women just accept and use the power they already hold. Marked by good intentions and marred by poor execution, Fire with Fire cleverly taps into contemporary currents of feminism-bashing.

Wolf's youthful good looks and her embrace of the media limelight, as well as her facility with the literature, themes and language of contemporary feminist theory, have made Fire with...