Summer 1980 633 relations of the sexes are disordered and extremely problematic, if not disabling, for women; all seek paths toward change. I have learned more from some of these books than from others but on this i am clear: each one might have been more accurate, more powerful, more truly a force for change, had the author felt impelled to deal with lesbian existence as a reality, and as a source of knowledge and power available to women; or with the institution of heterosexuality itself as a beachhead of male dominance. In none of them is the question ever raised, whether in a different context, or other things being equal, women would choose het- erosexual coupling and marriage, heterosexuality is presumed as a"sex ual preference"of"most women, " either implicitly or explicitly. In none of these books, which concern themselves with mothering, sex roles elationships, and societal prescriptions for women, is compulsory het erosexuality ever examined as an institution powerfully affecting all these; or the idea of"preference"or"innate orientation"even indirectly questioned In For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, the authors' superb pam phlets, witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, and Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of sickness, are developed into a provocative and complex study. Their thesis in this book is that the advice given American women by male health professionals, particularly in the areas of marital sex, maternity, and child care, has echoed the dictates of the economic marketplace and the role capitalism has needed women to play in production and/or reproduction. Women have become the consumer victims of various cures, therapies, and normative judg ments in different periods(includ ing the prescription to middle-class 4. I could have chosen many other serious and influential recent books, includi anthologies, which would illustrate the same point: e.g. Our Bodies, Ourselves, the Boston Womens Health Collective's best-seller(New York: Simon Schuster, 1976), which de votes a separate(and inadequate)chapter to lesbians, but whose message is that heterosex- ality is most womens life preference; Berenice Carroll, ed, Liberating Women's History Theoretical and Critical Essays(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), which does not clude even a token essay on the lesbian presence in history, though an essay by linda Gordon, Persis Hunt, et al. notes the use by male historians of"sexual deviance ategory to discredit and dismiss Anna Howard Shaw, Jane Addams, and other feminists Historical Phallacies: Sexism in American Historical Writing"); and Renate Bridentha nd Claudia Koonz, eds, Becoming Visible: we Mifflin Co., 1977), which contains three mentions of male homosexuality but no materials that I have been able to locate on lesbians. Gerda Lerner, ed, The Female Experience:an Merican Documentary(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1977), contains an abridgment of two lesbian/feminist position papers from the contemporary movement but no other doc ian existence. Lerner does note in her preface, however, how the charge of deviance has been used to fragment women and discourage womens resistance. Lind Gordon, in Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America(Ney ccurately that: It is not that fe produced more lesbians. There have always been many lesbians, despite high levels of repression; and most lesbians experience their sexual preference as innate... " (p. 410)Summer 1980 633 relations of the sexes are disordered and extremely problematic, if not disabling, for women; all seek paths toward change. I have learned more from some of these books than from others; but on this I am clear: each one might have been more accurate, more powerful, more truly a force for change, had the author felt impelled to deal with lesbian existence as a reality, and as a source of knowledge and power available to women; or with the institution of heterosexuality itself as a beachhead of male dominance.4 In none of them is the question ever raised, whether in a different context, or other things being equal, women would choose het￾erosexual coupling and marriage; heterosexuality is presumed as a "sex￾ual preference" of "most women," either implicitly or explicitly. In none of these books, which concern themselves with mothering, sex roles, relationships, and societal prescriptions for women, is compulsory het￾erosexuality ever examined as an institution powerfully affecting all these; or the idea of "preference" or "innate orientation" even indirectly questioned. In For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts' Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, the authors' superb pam￾phlets, Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, and Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness, are developed into a provocative and complex study. Their thesis in this book is that the advice given American women by male health professionals, particularly in the areas of marital sex, maternity, and child care, has echoed the dictates of the economic marketplace and the role capitalism has needed women to play in production and/or reproduction. Women have become the consumer victims of various cures, therapies, and normative judg￾ments in different periods (including the prescription to middle-class 4. I could have chosen many other serious and influential recent books, including anthologies, which would illustrate the same point: e.g., Our Bodies, Ourselves, the Boston Women's Health Collective's best-seller (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), which de￾votes a separate (and inadequate) chapter to lesbians, but whose message is that heterosex￾uality is most women's life preference; Berenice Carroll, ed., Liberating Women's History: Theoretical and Critical Essays (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), which does not include even a token essay on the lesbian presence in history, though an essay by Linda Gordon, Persis Hunt, et al. notes the use by male historians of "sexual deviance" as a category to discredit and dismiss Anna Howard Shaw, Jane Addams, and other feminists ("Historical Phallacies: Sexism in American Historical Writing"); and Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, eds., Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1977), which contains three mentions of male homosexuality but no materials that I have been able to locate on lesbians. Gerda Lerner, ed., The Female Experience: An American Documentary (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1977), contains an abridgment of two lesbian/feminist position papers from the contemporary movement but no other doc￾umentation of lesbian existence. Lerner does note in her preface, however, how the charge of deviance has been used to fragment women and discourage women's resistance. Linda Gordon, in Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America (New York: Viking Press, Grossman, 1976), notes accurately that: "It is not that feminism has produced more lesbians. There have always been many lesbians, despite high levels of repression; and most lesbians experience their sexual preference as innate . . ." (p. 410). Signs