Being defined as inferior at birth is a major reason for women's rage and the author has an interesting section describing how different types of women deal with rage. There is, for example, the super-competent woman who uses her competence as a weapon. She thinks she can vent her rage by exercising power over other people. Some women use sex to control or make men dependent upon them. Others play the Good Christian Martyr who controls everyone through self-abnegation. Each of these women lets rage run her life.

Through the process of therapy women reach a point when they must be allowed to express this rage without fear. Ann Wilson says that many therapists are uncomfortable with this much anger but she has found that support groups are very helpful. After this process is complete for other woman may merge with a greater love for other women, a deeper understanding of the feminist position and will usually move on towards larger humanistic issues.

A major part of this book, deals with the comparison between the White Male System and the Female System and here, I think, Wilson runs into problems. In spite of disclaimers, she sets up a polarity between men and women, and makes it a generic issue rather than one of traits and approaches to life. She says that no person can be purely in one system or the other and neither system is better than the other. The tone of her writing belies this, however, and here in lies the confusion. There is no doubt that the female system is presented as superior and that she completely identifies this system with women or few men who are she says, mostly homosexual. She compares the White Male System and the Female System in several areas, including, sexuality, thought, morality, and views on immortality. Essentially the Female System is intuitive, non-linear, encompassing, loving, becoming, flexible, cosmic and so on. All the good things. The White Male System is rational, linear, rigid, power-based, controlling, finite, competitive, non-relational. Most of the things sensitive people would rather not be. However, aside from this double-think, this section of the book is filled with some marvellous observations on women. I particularly liked what she had to say on relationships: "The essence of life in the Female System a woman comes home to, is relationship--not relationships that define and validate, but relationships with the self, one's work, others, and the universe--that nurture and grow."

Having examined the content of the two systems, she goes on to explain the process by which the two operates. The female System operates by paradox. "Before one can get a solid grasp on paradox, one must be willing to relinquish both intellectual and physical control. That is very difficult for White Male System persons to do." The White Male System is dualistic. "We are trained to perceive things dualistically and to simplify the world into "either-ors".

The last brief section of this book, deals with the importance of becoming theologically aware. The theory of The Female System is process; that of the White Male System is static." "A static system allows for no differences. A static system gives the illusion of safety. A static system ignores or disparages process in favor of content. A static system devalues and devours itself."

I doubt if there is an area that Ann Wilson Schaef does not at least touch upon in the course of her book. Her emphasis on the importance of process, flow, flexibility in our handling of life, seems to be valid for both women and men, but as she herself says in the preface. "This book has three purposes: liberation, sharing and communication. It is intended to liberate women from an unnecessary oppression based on myths. It is intended to share and legitimate what all women know--some of which they are willing to admit to themselves, and some of which they are willing to admit to others. It is intended to communicate in the 'female idiom'.

The delight of the book for me was the recognition of women's reality.