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the domestic labour debate. There is a useful chapter which summarises very clearly the debate so far. However, she concludes the chapter by saying that the shortcomings of the debate so far lie in a failure to go beyond economic determinism, and that once labour power is understood as a term expressing the alienation of productive activity, the mechanistie divide between *the ideological superstructure" and "the economic base" begins to disappear". The way this is put seems to me a bit glib; again, Foreman doesn't really examine the connections between ideology and coonomic base in any concrete way.
Also, Foreman says that the women's movement can play a crucial role in bringing out the connections between the family and the process of alienation. She discusses the practical implications of her theory in terms of taking political issues into the arena of the family, onto Socialist Woman JOURNAL OF THE IN ONE YEAR the housing estates; getting the labour movement to take up issues like nurseries, etc., which affect women, and where possible developing this into the area of sexuality and the family; and lastly setting up women's caucuses in all areas of political life, including the traditional labour movement organisations, to ensure the full participation of women.
All these ideas I think are excellent - but the problems of putting them into practice are notorious. Firstly, the experience of the Working Women's Charter and of the socialist feminist groups has been that even socialist women are reluctant to involve themselves in the sphere of 'traditional" politics. Secondly, Foreman seems to sce the women's movement as something more homogeneous than it in fact is. The women's movement is not a Marxist movement: how then can the liberals.
MILD A SOCIALIST OPPOSTION RATES reformists, anarchists and others within it be at the forefront of the struggle to make the whole process of alienation under capitalism visible to the masses? There needs to be a struggle within the women's movement itself on these questions.
Despite these criticisms of the book - and, in particular, that it would have been more useful if Ann Foreman had spent more time in developing her central ideas in greater depth — Femininity As Alienation begins to piece togethcr, in a vast assemblage of ideas, the history of women's oppression in relation to Marxist theory and practice. This is a vital task, and the book provides a good starting point for the urgent work of clarifying and deepening the analysis she has begun.
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