In the years since the publication of Walk to the End of the World and Motherlines the feminist movement has had its share of triumph, but it has also had its share of failure. On the one hand, the number of women attending college, graduate school, even medical school, is at an all time high. On the other hand, the gap between what women and men are paid for comparable work has hardly narrowed at all. More women now serve in Congress than ever before, but the Equal Rights Amendment never made it into law.

Many older feminists say that they feel alienated from younger women, most of whom seem unable to understand the trials and pain their elders went through to secure them the rights they now enjoy. A number of younger women writers, from Camille Paglia to Christina Hoff Sommers, appear to have rejected...