Rosemarie Tong’s Feminist Thought is a map of the major traditions that shaped twentieth-century feminist theory, trying to show how different feminisms begin, what they take to be the source of women’s oppression, and how radically their answers diverge.

Tong moves through liberal, Marxist and socialist, radical, psychoanalytic, existentialist and postmodern feminism, then rubs them up against questions of autonomy, reproduction, motherhood, sexuality, pornography, labour and gender. Everything appears differently depending on the intellectual architecture brought to them, and Tong makes those architectures visible.

The sections on radical feminism, for instance, track debates around reproductive labour, sexual politics and antipornography feminism, while the liberal feminist discussion interrogates the limits of freedom understood simply as individual choice. A strong historical primer for readers wanting to understand feminism as a constellation field. 

Routledge, London, 1994. Reprint of the 1989 edition. Paperback. Moderate shelf wear and creasing to covers; some pencil underlining and marginal marking internally. Binding firm. Good condition.