better able to articulate w h y this is the o n l y research
approach w i t h w h i c h I feel comfortable. T h i s work also
represents for me the cognitive bridge between my consciousness as a feminist a n d m y understanding of i n d i v i d ual psychology. A s a feminist I h a b i t u a l l y identify, critique a n d challenge assumptions a n d practices of male
dominance w h i c h I personally experience as objectionable. As a psychotherapist w o r k i n g w i t h w o m e n , I identify,
critique a n d challenge a l l i n d i v i d u a l assumptions a n d
practices w h i c h w o m e n use to impede their o w n attainment of personal autonomy. It is clear to me that the
i n d i v i d u a l must, and can, free herself from internally held
constraints (regardless of where they originate) w h i c h typically exert far more cruel l i m i t s o n her potential than do
any external, societal barriers. In h e l p i n g w o m e n move
through this process, I predictably encounter i n i t i a l anger
and resistance. Stanley and Wise provide a n e x p l a n a t i o n
w h i c h concurs w i t h m y o w n :
structural explanations...enable people to hide i n
collectivisms, i n the sense that they can a v o i d t a k i n g
responsibility for their o w n lives a n d actions, (p.
107)
Breaking Out offers to any w o m a n w h o cares to hear the
message a vision of how to break out from oppression i n
her o w n daily life w i t h o u t w a i t i n g for s o m e t h i n g to
change externally. F o r the feminist researcher there is
m u c h more revealed about what not to do than recipes for
good feminist research. Stanley a n d Wise devote most of
the book to e x p l a i n i n g their total revolt against positivism
and determinism; a heavier emphasis, perhaps, than was
needed. T h e i r protracted paradigm-smashing was felt to
be necessary, I suspect, because of the i n t i m i d a t i n g force of
conventional structuralist assumptions about social reality . In this regard the authors note, " M a n y w o m e n appear
to be very wary of standing u p to Marxist-feminist heavies
w h o i n a l l circumstances appear to remain absolutely
convinced of the rightness of what they say" (p. 107).
Breaking Out attempts to show us h o w we can make
sense of o u r lives a n d o u r m i l i e u as i n d i v i d u a l w o m e n .
Yet, we are still left w i t h the problem of structure, even if it
is people w h o oppress people, structures do exist i n consensual reality a n d at least at the macro- o r policy-level
must be dealt w i t h i n their o w n terms. T o pursue the
liberation of w o m e n , we must work together for changes
i n social policy; but, above a l l we need to strive for the k i n d
of personal insight w h i c h w i l l guide us to improve o u r
private lives.
Cerise M o r r i s
Dawson College
Feminist Literary Studies: A n Introduction. K . K . R u t h v e n .
Cambridge University Press, 1984..
If n o t h i n g else, K . K . R u t h v e n has done a commendable
j o b o f a n t i c i p a t i n g objections t o h i s w o r k . Indeed, most of
the positions f r o m w h i c h one m i g h t choose to respond to
this survey of feminist literary c r i t i c i s m seem already to be
o c c u p i e d by the various straw w o m e n of the author's
i m a g i n a t i o n . O n e may q u e s t i o n the motives that i m p e l a
male academic to analyse the feminist project, but o n l y at
the risk of j o i n i n g the nameless " v u l g a r i a n s " (p. 9) a n d
" v i g i l a n t e s " (p. 93) w h o make their appearances i n this
book. O n e may object to the harshness and lack of discrimi n a t i o n that c l o u d m a n y of h i s appraisals of standard
feminist arguments, b u t o n l y at the expense of being
identified w i t h the practitioners of "feminist terrorism,"
an extraordinary c o m p a n y w h i c h enjoys "the vicarious
satisfactions of retaliation a n d reprisal i n the war of the
sexes for w h i c h the o n l y end is u n c o n d i t i o n a l surrender of
a l l power to w o m e n " (p. 10). O n e may assent, of course, to
some of his judgements, but, thanks to the i n t i m i d a t o r y
rhetoric of radical f e m i n i s m , even this o p t i o n is open o n l y
to those brave e n o u g h to risk association w i t h a contemptible figure branded as the " p a t r i a r c h a l l y brainwashed traitor to her o w n sex" (p. 14). W h o m is R u t h v e n w r i t i n g for,
one wonders.
G i v e n h i s obvious contempt for feminist readers, it is
w i t h particular trepidation that I confess that, u n t i l
R u t h v e n raised the issue, I h a d never been greatly alarmed
at the prospect of a man's w r i t i n g or c o m m e n t i n g o n
feminist c r i t i c i s m . T h e p r o p o s i t i o n that o n l y w o m e n can
speak o n matters that concern w o m e n strikes me, as it does
R u t h v e n , as both a betrayal of the precept that f e m i n i s m
concerns everyone a n d a replication of the most objectionable feature of prefeminist e x c l u s i o n i s m . R u t h v e n is quite
right to p o i n t o u t that if, as m a n y feminists have argued,
a l l those characteristics associated w i t h female thought
a n d expression are acquired a n d not innate, it is unjustifiable to declare a priori that gender alone s h o u l d disqualify
anyone f r o m t h i n k i n g o r expressing a n y t h i n g . H a d he
pushed the argument a stage further, moreover, he w o u l d
surely have seen that the hypothetical protest he is so
a n x i o u s to discredit is self-contradictory as w e l l . T h a t is to
say, for a w o m a n to m a i n t a i n that a m a n , s i m p l y because
he is a m a n , can k n o w n o t h i n g about femaleness is to
presume that she herself k n o w s e n o u g h about maleness to
see that his ignorance is hopeless. T h i s confirms precisely
the possibility of a knowledge of the other sex that this
i m a g i n a r y objector to Ruthven's c l a i m is attempting to
deny. Instead of seizing o n what seems to me a conclusive
demonstration of his right to p u b l i s h his o p i n i o n s ,
R u t h v e n harangues his readers w i t h a series of c i r c u m -
stantial arguments designed, it seems, to alienate even the
most i m p a r t i a l .
H e takes heart f r o m the fact that " f e m i n i s t criticism is
heavily dependent o n men to articulate its p o s i t i o n " (p.
11). Those w h o , out of resentment at this unpalatable
truth, w o u l d denigrate the c o n t r i b u t i o n of J o h n Stuart
M i l l (for example), constitute a " c y n i c a l w a r n i n g to any
m a n w h o tries his h a n d at feminist c r i t i c i s m : if y o u have to
d o i t , make sure y o u don't do it better than w o m e n " (p. 12).
H i m s e l f undeterred, R u t h v e n points out that, as a potential c o n t r i b u t i o n to knowledge, feminist criticism must be
prepared to entertain a n d profit f r o m the reasoned objections of professional scholars—and this i n spite of the
d i s p o s i t i o n of many feminist to react to this challenge as
t h o u g h it were " a threat to a n i m m u t a b l e t r u t h " (p. 14).
M e n are as w e l l q u a l i f i e d as w o m e n to administer the acid
test since, " i t is n o more necessary to be a w o m a n i n order
to analyse feminist c r i t i c i s m as c r i t i c i s m than it is to be a
M a r x i s t i n order to understand the strategies of M a r x i s t
c r i t i c i s m " (p. 15). Stripped of bravado, what this amounts
to is s i m p l y a p r o p o s a l to evaluate feminist literary studies
objectively, as it were, from the supposedly neutral territory of the academy.
T h o u g h perhaps naive, this w o u l d not be truly objectionable had R u t h v e n made a more c o n v i n c i n g show of
scholarly i m p a r t i a l i t y . T h e burden of his c o m p l a i n t
against feminist c r i t i c i s m is that " i t constitutes itself as a
faith to be fortified rather than a t r u t h - c l a i m to be investig a t e d " (p. 13). T o ask of feminist c r i t i c i s m , "Is it true?" is
surely already to make a special case of the object of
i n q u i r y , to d e m a n d of it what n o theory of literature is
e q u i p p e d to provide. T h o u g h the r a l l y i n g cries of the
various schools may sometimes be couched as truthc l a i m s — " a p o e m s h o u l d not mean but be," "the A u t h o r is
d e a d , " "there is n o t h i n g outside the text"—it is difficult to
see h o w any of them c o u l d be judged o n the basis of
truthfulness. W h a t w o u l d the standard be? What w o u l d
constitute proof? Literary theories, by a n d large, cannot
h e l p but appears to outsiders as matters of f a i t h ; it is o n l y
at the level of their interpretation of specific texts that their
c l a i m s are ever o p e n to the sort of e m p i r i c a l investigation
that R u t h v e n appears to have i n m i n d .
Yet, it is i n his discussion of textual interpretation,
potentially the most f r u i t f u l area for rigorous debate, that
his case appears weakest. H a v i n g noted the propensity of
feminist criticism to privilege feminist explanations of
literary date over others that seem e q u a l l y plausible,
R u t h v e n attempts to demonstrate the arbitrariness of
images of w o m e n c r i t i c i s m . Feminists account for the
reverential treatment of the female figure i n the conven-
tional Petrarchan sonnet, for instance, by s h o w i n g that it
functions as an effective strategy for delineating a n d f i x i n g
w o m e n as the mute objects of male desire. Ruthven's reply
to these critics is that the Petrarchan convention arose
s i m p l y because it satisfied a n artistic need, "the literary
i m a g i n a t i o n is stimulated far more productively by sexual
frustration than by gratified desire" (p. 78). Somehow it
escapes h i m that this is precisely the circumstance that the
feminist critics were seeking to e x p l a i n . T h e i r interpretat i o n of the data is more satisfying here because it is more
comprehensive, as well as recognizing an ostensible need
to depict w o m e n i n a specific way, i t explores the underlyi n g reasons for this need.
T h e dismissiveness and i r r i t a t i o n evident i n this book
are traceable, i n a curious way, to its conception of feminist literary studies as "just one more way of t a l k i n g about
b o o k s " (p. 8). A s such, feminist criticism ought to be
absorbed as q u i c k l y as possible i n t o what R u t h v e n envisages as the diverse but h a r m o n i o u s c o m p a n y of a l l academic critical practices. F a i l i n g to appreciate the reasons
w h y feminists s h o u l d f i n d such a prospect undesirable, he
can o n l y express his dismay at the many issues o n w h i c h
f e m i n i s m pits itself deliberately against the c o m b i n e d forces of traditional c r i t i c i s m . T h e days have l o n g since gone
by when various critical approaches c o u l d coexist under
the comfortable i l l u s i o n that they were s u p p l e m e n t i n g
a n d e n r i c h i n g one another. Whether one approves or
laments this fact, Ruthven's book is evidence that there is
little to be gained by pretending it isn't so.
Hilary Turner
McMaster University
Pandora's Daughters. The Role and Status of Women in
Greek and Roman Antiquity. E v a Cantarella. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.
T h i s book is a must o n the reading list of any serious
c u r r i c u l u m i n Women's Studies; this E n g l i s h version,
translated by Maureen Fant, first p u b l i s h e d i n 1981 by
E d i t o r i R i u n i t i , is l o n g overdue. A legal h i s t o r i a n , Eva
Cantarella brings a new a p p r o a c h to the study of the
codification of sexual roles a n d attitudes. T r a d i t i o n a l l y ,
this type of study has been based largely o n the emotiona l l y distorted evidence of m y t h o l o g y a n d literature. W h i l e
not f u l l y d i s m i s s i n g these sources, Cantarella focusses her
study o n the e x a m i n a t i o n of more objective i n f o r m a t i o n ,
such as legal documents and their interpretation i n the
customs of the day. " I n their abstraction a n d generality,"
says Cantarella, "the rules of law a l l o w reconstruction of