The Necessity for / Value of Feminist Movement

This is the author's over-arching theme. Feminist movement, she contends, as defined on the terms she proposes, has the potential to transform contemporary American society on almost every level. She suggests that such movement (characterized as the "movement to end sexist oppression" - see Chapter 2) has the potential to free America from a number of profoundly disempowering, deeply entrenched and functioning (not necessarily functional) perspectives: racial, social, political, economic, moral and sexual, as well as those relating to age and gender. Feminist movement is, in other words, at the core of profound, not to mention essential, cultural transformation.

A cornerstone of the author's point is the belief that men as well as women can, will, and should benefit from feminist movement. She repeatedly suggests that if women break down repressive gender value systems maintained socially and culturally for centuries, men will also...