Gannagé has chosen to quote from her extensive interviews with only minimal editing. While this has the effect of making the women (whose first language is rarely English) sound a bit simple, it is an honest way of representing them. She achieves profundity, if not subtlety.

Gannagé neither patronizes her subjects nor engages in hero-worship: she is critical of some of their analyses of their own situation. The real respect she showed in taking the women's experiences seriously has enabled her to put together an astute study. The workers' testimony on the piecework system as "slave labour" is virtually unique.

The first chapter, which propounds the theories developed in Gannagé's doctoral dissertation, is heavy going, but it is worth wading through before moving to the meat of her work.

Gannagé challenges both the traditional Marxist emphasis on women's exploitation as paid workers, and certain feminist theories that overplay the political economy of domestic work. Gannagé ends with a challenge to women's organizations and labour unions to examine more carefully the problems confronting women like Grace and Maria, and to take into account their realities in finding new approaches to encouraging their participation and activism. This book will undoubtedly help in that re-examination.

Laurell Ritchie is the Vice-President of the Canadian Textile and Chemical Union and active in women's organizations such as the National Action Committee on the Status of Women.

Charlene Gannagé has been active in the women's movement in Toronto since the early '70s. She teaches sociology at the University of Toronto and is a post-doctoral fellow at York University. She is currently coordinating a union research project on technological change in the garment industry. (From the book jacket).

Double Day, Double Bind by Charlene Gannagé is published by Women's Press, 229 College Street, #204, Toronto, Ontario M5T 1R4, (416)598-0082,
Price: $10.95