This new book integrates material drawn from a variety of sources -- feminist theory, cultural and literary analysis, sociology and art history -- in an original discussion of womena s relationship to modern and post--modern culture. The essays in the book challenge the continuing separation of sociological from textual analysis in cultural (and feminist) theory and enquiry. They address critically the question of womena s writing, exploring the idea that women may begin to define their own lives and construct their identities in a patriarchal culture through the very process of writing. They also present a cogent defence of a feminist cultural politics, including a politics of the body.