Women's StudJes Int Quart., 1981, Vol 4, No 2, pp. 253-285, 1981 Pergamon Press Lid Printedm Great Britain BOOK REVIEWS FEMINISM IN AMERICAN POLITICS: A STUDY OF IDEOLOGICAL INFLUENCE by Claire Knoche Fulenwider. Praeger Publishers, New York, 1980. Price $0.00. Past scholarly neglect of women's lives, organizations and movements makes it hard not to give an unqualified welcome to the present flood of research and information. However, the fact that 'women' and 'feminism" provide a new, untilled area for theses and publications carries its own problems in developing a full and feminist understanding of women's social position and political struggles. How much, for example, can we learn if the research methods and assumptions of mainstream empirical political science are turned upon feminism and political participation? Fulenwider's study immediately provokes such a question. The study is an off-shoot of the University of Michigan election studies; in this case the data refer to 1972 and 1976. Fulenwider investigates whether 'feminism" is a political ideology and a social movement, as these are understood in political science literature (the latter aspect of the book can usefully be compared to a feminist historian's study of feminism as a social movement: E. Dubois, Feminism and Suffrage), and the relation of feminism to political attitudes and participation. The ll-item .femimsm' scale presented to respondents concentrates on equal rights and opportunities. The findings are not without intrinsic interest, especially the differences revealed between black and white women. Support for feminism (as measured) increased over the 4 years, but by 1976 women were more likely to be either strongly for or against feminism than men and there were signs of resistance to feminism among black women. However, it was among black women that feminism was strongly associated with participation. Only a very weak relation was found between feminism and political participation for white women; SES was a much more important factor. Support for 'protest' activities (undefined) also rose sharply among Mack women, unlike whites, but, in general, only a weak relation was found between feminism and unconventional participation. Fulenwider concludes that increasing support for feminism is 'support for traditional, moderate, gradual reform'. This may well be true, even in the changed social and economic circumstances of the 1980s, but it is not as certain as Fulenwider suggests that this conclusion should be drawn from a study that asks no critical questions about the limitanons of orthodox political science for its subject matter. The limitations arise from the individualist assumptions and approach of conventional empirical research. Although Fulenwider states that an investigation of political participation and social change must recognize the interrelationship between individual and structural ('system') factors, her methodology requires that they be kept separate--the personal is not, and should not be, the political. The result, as in so much large scale empirical research, is a persistent tendency towards psychological reductionism. For example, Fulenwider treats political efficacy as a 'personal attitude' that can be separated from other 'attitudes' involving evaluation of the political system. However, the social distribution of political efficacy and its relationship to political participation can be explained only if it is recognized that a sense of efficacy is not merely psychological but also reflects the individual's evaluation of the political structure. Levels of political efficacy among women were found to have fallen from 1972 to 1976, and Futenwider argues that the relation between feminism and participation can be explained, rather, through the existence of (a 'personal') 'sense of internal control' and a ('political') 'sense of government responsiveness'-- which neatly begs the question of the relation of the latter notions to political efficacy itself. Feminist political scientists have recently brought the sexism of empirical political science, especially voting studies, into the light of day, but, as Feminism in American Politics illustrates, the problems run deeper than the exposure of crude stereotypes. Women and 'feminism' can be brought within the scope of sophisticated empirical research, but some critical and feminist questions remain to be asked about its assumptions, the perspective it offers on political life, and the consequences of this incorporation. CAROLE PATEMAN WOMEN IN THE HOUSE by Elizabeth Vallance, 212 pages. The Athlone Press, London 1979. Price £9.50. Women in the House is the first full-length book on women in British politics to be published for 5 years. I Appearing only a few months after Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman Prime Minister, ironically in an election in which the greatest number of women candidates since female suffrage led to the 1 The last was Melville Currell's PoRtical Woman, published in 1974. 253