Feminist Thinkers and the Demands of Femininity: The Livesand Work of Intellectual Women. By Lori Jo Marso. NewYork: Routledge, 2006. 240p. $ 95.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

This elegant book explores the memoirs, private correspondence, andother self-revelatory writings of prominent feminist thinkers with aview to disclosing their struggles to live feminist lives whilecontending with conventional gender norms. The socially constructedstandards of proper femininity that encumbered these women are whatthe author terms “the demands of femininity.” According to Lori JoMarso, the demands of femininity vary “in terms of race, class andhistorical and cultural location” (p. 30), but notwithstanding theirmalleable content, these normative representations constituteconstraints to which all women are subject under patriarchalconditions.