ABSTRACT
ABOUT EIGHT YEARS AGO, WHEN I DECIDED to develop at Williams College a course entitled "Introduction to Feminist Theory," several of my colleagues had two predominant and for the most part inconsistent reactions. One colleague branded the course "a political polemic." It turned out that he saw feminist theory as a monolithic ideology into which unsuspecting students would be indoctrinated. Another colleague criticized the course for almost opposite reasons: He saw nothing theoretical about feminist theory at all. Echoing many early critics of feminist thought, he described it as a random mixture of complaints pointing out, but scarcely analyzing, the subjugation of women. l After much discussion, and with the help of the Williams Women's Studies Committee, I finally persuaded my skeptical colleagues that feminist theory is not one, but many, theories or perspectives and that each feminist theory or perspective attempts to describe women's oppression, to explain its causes and consequences, and to prescribe strategies for women's liberation. The more skillfully a feminist theory can combine description, explanation, and prescription, the better that theory is.
