The New Feminism, by Natasha Walter (Little Brown, £15.99) I WANTED to read ' The new feminism' having read various pre-publication reviews which suggested it was a debate with the feminism of the 1970s and critical of this tradition for an over-emphasis on personal politics, ignoring the material barriers to women's liberation.
Like other women who became radicalised at this time, I felt annoyed that our struggles and ideas were being misunderstood, but at the same time I wanted a clearer picture of the issues that were animating younger women today.
When I started reading I was more impressed than I expected to be. A plethora of statistics is set out, making clear the extent to which millions of women suffer discrimination today.
As I continued however, the shortcomings became more apparent.
In dealing with the past, and in particular the history of the Women's Liberation Movement in Britain in the 1970s, Walter is hampered by the fact that the documentation of those discussions and campaigns is patchy and partial. Certainly the picture that emerges is more than a little lopsided.
Its true that Walters points out a fact I had not picked up from the reviews - that at first the second wave women's movement had been 'primarily concerned with righting social and economic disadvantages' (p60).
However then she goes on to say, within the same paragraph that 'it eventually seemed to col lapse under the weight of its insistence on the importance of women's personal experiences' (ibid).
Walter then goes on to develop a critique of identity politics -. somewhat superficially but generally on the right lines. What is missing however is any recognition of the fact that there were political differences between feminists, most crucially between socialist and radical feminists.
Downplayed
Her 'history' of second wave feminism downplays the contribution of socialist feminists and suggests, falsely, that the development of identity politics was supported by all.
Nor does she take on board that as the organised Women's Liberation movement began to fragment, shortly after the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, many socialist feminists increasingly chose to put their energies into the trade unions ant Labour Party, carrying on the fight for women's equality and representation in these forums.
There are other weaknesses too.
The struggle for women's right to control our fertility, for free abortion and contraception on demand is virtually absent from the book. The various battles over these issues were central to the concerns of the Women's Liberation movement of the 1970s and to socialist feminists particularly.
The campaigns in defence of abortion rights and against various attempts to restrictively amend the 1967 Abortion Act were key milestones in fighting for trade unions in particular to take on board a fight for women's rights that went beyond what were traditionally seen as trade union issues.
More importantly the fight for a woman's right to choose is far from won today - yet this central issue finds no place in Walter's five goals for future campaigning.
But Walter ends up pandering to homophobic stereotypes. She presents a critique of radical feminism and the notion of 'political lesbianism' that sometimes accompanied it, but without any analysis of the social and political discrimination and oppression faced by lesbians, and the way that this interacts with the material disadvantage faced by all women.
Lesbianism becomes defined as man-hating - while female heterosexuality is not defined by her as woman hating!
The most dangerous aspect of this book, however, has not been picked up in any of the reviews I have read. In practice, whether or not this is intended, the book argues for a 'feminism' which is in many ways congruent with the ideas being put forward by Blair's Struggles for abortion rights have been key milestones New Labour Party.
Perhaps the title of the book; 'the new feminism' is more thought through than I assumed?
Walter argues that previous strategies for women's emancipation at work for example have been based on a false dichotomy -either that 'women should be left to pursue their powerless, cyclical careers, but should be given special treatment from employers and the state to compensate them for the worst effects of inequality' (p227) or that they should be encouraged to 'remake themselves in line with the traditional masculine pattern' (ibid).
Neither, she argues, is an adequate way forward, and instead we must follow a third path in which we recognise the 'crying need to make work more flexible. Sounds familiar: isn't that what New Labour is so fond of telling us?
Natasha Walter is undoubtedly sincere in her anger over women's inequality. Her book presents many useful reminders of the reality of our lives.
The fact that she pushes women such as Barbara Follet forward as role models would not matter so much if it was combined with an understanding that it is primarily through the collective action that real improvements have and can be won.
Women have been successful in winning at least some men to support such struggles by raising demands that either improve men's position at the same time - or at least do not worsen it.
Socialist feminists need to be debating and engaging with the ideas put forward here because they are sophisticated - and therefore more dangerous than those of many other opponents.