Sontag On Women

The new collection of essays by Susan Sontag "On Women" is compiled by her son David Rieff from texts written and published from 1972 to 1975, during one of the most resonant periods of the women's movement in the USA. Sontag's polemical and at times radical ideas about what it means to be a woman in the modern world are presented in critical essays, magazine questionnaires, and interviews, as well as in a discussion in letters with poet and feminist Adrienne Rich. Mixing lively journalism and summarizing analysis, Sontag raises questions about the double standard of aging, women's sexual validity, the relationships between women, the connections of the women's movement with other revolutionary movements, women's self-oppression, the functioning of beauty ideals, the eroticization of fascism, the plurality of feminist positions, and others. The collection reflects the tumultuous era of the early 1970s, as well as Sontag's own path, without losing critical relevance to this day.