PASSIONATE POLITICS: Essays 1968-1986

A bloodless, dreary, and dated collection of essays from the former editor of Quest: A Feminist Quarterly. Bunch participated in many of the angry, colorful feminist actions of the 60's and 70's. She was there when dissatisfied women took over the offices of the Ladies Home Journal, demanding to be represented; she was in Atlantic City during the disruption of the Miss America pageant. But, unfortunately, her book doesn't even hint at the energy and excrement the women's movement generated in its outrageous, halcyon days. Mostly reprints from Quest, the essays are depressingly obsolete--old ""New Left"" ideology applied (with all the intimacy of an office memo) to the women's struggle. Sociological jargon abounds (Bunch earned her credentials at the Institute for Policy Studies). She covers all the old issues--""consciousness raising,"" ""lesbian separatism,"" pornography, the ERA and Geraldine Ferraro--but, with the exception of one article (a true story of a 16th-century cross-dressing female adventurer), the volume is as dull and abstract as its chapter headings: ""Conditions for Reform Actions,"" ""Sexism is the Root of All Oppression,"" ""Diversity and Coalitions,"" to name a few."" Dis-passionate politics"" is more like it: dry as a bone.