Where the Meanings Are

In these 15 essays Stimpson's passionate, scholarly convictions give resonance to feminist themes that have become worn. She contemplates whether there is a unique feminine sensibility in literature, studies blacks and women as victims of white patriarchal culture and defines a central task of feminism as the exposing of misrepresentations of women in mass media, everyday speech and religion. A founding editor of the journal Signs, Stimpson parallels the homosexual and the androgyne, offers a shrewd analysis of Ladies Home Journal, critiques conservative feminists and ``Midge Decter's Daughters'' of the right, examines lesbian novels, Adrienne Rich's poetry and Shakespeare's attitude toward rape. Applying her feminist principles to her own life, she wonders whether she has become ``phallocentric'': too much in love with power and ego. (June)