Frigga Haug, one of Germany's best-known feminist and Marxist critics, develops here a profound challenge both to women's oppression and to what she sees as women's 'collusion' in that oppression. Rejecting the essentialism of much feminist writing today, along with the denial of subjectivity that still permeates Marxism, Haug explores the connections between Marxist theory and the emancipation of women, a project which necessarily involves, as she explains, 'diverting a powerful and long-standing anger into detective work'. Under the headings of Socialization, Work and Politics, she combines...

Foregrounding the body, this remarkable collective work explores the sexualization of women's bodies, charting the complex interplay of social, political and cultural forces which produce a normative "femininity." A series of projects which focus on concrete instances of sexualization (hair, legs, the slavegirl stereotype, women's gymnastics) lead to a broader examination of the relationship between power and sexuality, the social and the psychological. Placing themselves at the crossroad where feminism and socialism meet, the contributors move seamlessly between the autobiographical and the...