ABSTRACT
In 1993 Wendy Kaminer, a frequent and perceptive writer about feminism, took aim at what she thought to be an "identity crisis" in the movement. Starting with poll data augmented by interviews, Kaminer reported that most women—even those who have benefited most from feminist achievements on their behalf—do not feel "comfortable" with feminism as an ideology. Feminist scholars, such as historian Gerda Lerner, who published one of the first collections of important documents in African-American women's history, were well aware that to ignore differences among American women was to "distort reality." Initially, or so it appears in retrospect, most feminist theorists answered the question "Do women have to be the same as men to be equal?" with "probably so." Acknowledgment of differences among women offered an important corrective to mainstream feminist theory but undermined it at the same time.
