[In Reinventing Womanhood] Heilbrun is angry at her colleagues' refusal to help those women who struggle to change male thought and institutions in a serious way. Recognizing their pain and anxiety, she nonetheless urges them to remain outsiders rather than scurrying for a safe place at the male center, to "bond with the powerless against those in power."… Yet angry as she is, Heilbrun respects the sheer fact of female achievement and studies the lives of distinguished women in order to identify the conditions of their success….

Heilbrun urges all women, whether or not they count themselves achievers, to admit their own and other women's pain. A woman-identified, raised consciousness is necessary for the "reinvention of womanhood" that Heilbrun envisions. The courage to seek this consciousness without self-deception or denial is a necessary step to independent strength and collective action. But this first step leads only to despair unless we imagine ourselves as protagonists, adventurers in our own life stories….

Heilbrun recognizes a new kind of heroine, independent and brave, in the work of some contemporary feminist novelists and poets, especially Adrienne Rich, the central moral presence in this book. However, Heilbrun's examination of literature and biography concludes that female protagonists and heroines, past and present, are not enough. We women must claim men's inspiration, adopt for ourselves male models of achievement, take upon ourselves male quests and desires, for the male past "is the only past we have."… (p. 550)

Summarizing Heilbrun's arguments does not do justice to her wide-ranging literary erudition, to the wit of her examples, or to her compelling personal style. Her choice of writing autobiographically, she tells us, was a difficult and deliberate one. By refusing to separate personal history from impersonal truth she engages us fully in her work, and we understand its particular origins in her life.

Heilbrun's account of her relationship with Lionel Trilling, whose work she honors, is harrowing…. Though Heilbrun imagined that she might some day "engage in dialogue" with him—"the ponderous phrase explains exactly what I aspired to" …—in reality they barely spoke. Such brave and personal accounts of psychological abuse are worth chapters of impersonal analysis of women's difficulties with mentors. Only Trilling's death freed Heilbrun to adapt his work as best she could for herself and other women.

As Heilbrun knows, she is often at odds with feminists and their recent work. At several points I include myself among them…. Our difference lies in our relative evaluation of male and female as those terms are conventionally understood. Heilbrun tends to undervalue women's past and present endeavors. At the same time, she accepts too uncritically concepts of achievement and adventure which are both male and privileged.

Heilbrun seems to me to underestimate the intellectual, emotional, and sexual support women give each other. In her search through the lives of achievers, she fails to note the importance of female love to the development of autonomous strength, even when, as in the case of Gertrude Stein, the omission is striking. She rightly decries the failure of many women to ally with each other, but does not say that throughout history, and especially now, women are engaging in intense emotional and sometimes sexual comradeship. (pp. 551-52)

The reinvention of womanhood is a cooperative endeavor. The issues of feminism are complex and profound, they cut to the bone of our sexual, domestic, and public lives. We cannot afford narrow partisanship or the luxury of magnifying small differences. Heilbrun's book has neither of these defects. It is written with an openness and generosity that invites disagreement as well as assent. Reinventing Womanhood is a challenging gift: Heilbrun's questions are central, her answers sensitive and intelligent. She writes out of a commitment to women with a compassion and courage we would do well to emulate. (p. 553)