Tremors of Genderquake

By Martha Duffy

For the past decade or so, feminism has been taking a beating. Too extreme, according to critics of both sexes. Too splintered. Too lesbian. Too blinkered to recognize that most of the important goals have already been achieved. In addition, the movement's pioneers have distrusted younger feminists, accusing them of taking for granted gains that the older generation fought hard for.

Two years ago, that internecine friction was challenged by Gloria Steinem in Revolution from Within and especially by Susan Faludi in Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. You might call Naomi Wolf, whose Fire with Fire (Random House; $21) has just been published, a colonist of the territory that Steinem and Faludi staked out. Their message was that women were being fed cynical lampoons of feminists and not-so-subtle suggestions that liberation was responsible for any feelings they had of frustration or of "superwoman" tension. Steinem in particular countered such propaganda by preaching self-esteem.

Wolf wants women to ignore divisive tendencies within the movement; her pitch is, Come one, come all. She advocates something she vaguely calls "power feminism," which exploits the fact that American women outnumber men and cast 7 million more votes. In a section certain to anger most feminists, Wolf even welcomes opponents of abortion into the cause. But to many women, control of one's body is central to the movement and the right to an abortion nonnegotiable.

As a construct, Fire with Fire is flawed. Wolf shifts disconcertingly from serious argument to Camille Paglia-like flights of rhetoric -- something no one should ever, ever try -- to lengthy lists of examples to bolster her arguments. In the course of sorting through this debris of detail, the reader may well forget the original point.

But there are strengths in her work as well. For one thing, Wolf is an engaging raconteur. Once at Swarthmore College she found herself berated by members of a seminar on women's studies as too elitist (she used compound sentences); too lax as an academic (she used endnotes instead of footnotes); too much of a sellout (she published with a mainstream press). Later, over beer and pizza, the same students turned out to be friendly and vulnerable, voicing their late-adolescent doubts about sexuality and self-esteem.

Wolf is also savvy about the role of TV -- especially the Thomas-Hill hearings and daytime talk shows -- in radicalizing women, including homemakers, who are often ignored by political organizers. The heroine of her book is Anita Hill, the person most responsible for what Wolf calls the "genderquake." Women felt galvanized by seeing this tenured law professor who "spoke with the accuracy and measured tone of a well-trained attorney, and did not play the victim, weep or rely on recounting the destruction of her life to make her case." Typically, the author does not develop her thoughts about Hill's impact. Instead we get a list of 26 specific "changes" wrought by the hearings, followed by 30 more general citations of their cultural impact, and finally an unfocused roundup of global repercussions that includes the election of Ireland's President, Mary Robinson. Enough already. In fact, far too much.