Feminism and its fictions

the long version

In Feminism and Its Fictions, Lisa Maria Hogeland argues that women's and feminist fiction of the 1970s was dominated by a new kind of novel whose content and form were shaped by the practice of consciousness raising. She contends that consciousness-raising novels both reflected and furthered the Women's Liberation Movement's analyses of sexuality, gender, race, and political responsibility and that through their narrative structure the novels actually engaged in consciousness raising with their readers. Using a broad range of fiction - including works by Erica Jong, Marilyn French, Marge Piercy, Alix Kates Shulman, Alison Lurie, Joanna Russ, and Joan Didion - Hogeland explores the ways in which consciousness-raising novels addressed some of the most important questions raised by second-wave feminism: How can social change be brought about through changes in individual consciousness? How can sexuality be simultaneously a site of women's freedom and their oppression? How were feminist ideas constructed from ideas about race?