Anna Jonasdottir: Love Power and Political Interests. Ørebro studies 7: Høgskolan i Ørebro, 1991, 255 pp.

Love Power and Political Interests presents Anna Jonasdottir's doctoral thesis. It has already received much attention within Scandinavian feminist scholarship and, in January 1994, in a book to be published by Temple University Press under the title Why Women are Oppressed. In this book, she seeks to develop a new approach to feminist theory of patriarchy. The title itself indicates her task, which is to argue that human love - caring and ecstasy - are those activities which the sexual struggle of today revolves around. It is not primarily "the gendered division of work", nor "gender socialization" which makes patriarchy survive the Great Changes in women's lives. The unequal power relations between the sexes must now, in our type of society, "explain themselves", Jonasdottir maintains.

Each of these articles contains challenging ideas. In several, there are conceptual analyses of rare thoroughness, e.g. on exploitation, on political interests and on citizenship and individuality. Similarly, the critique of dual systems theory is a comprehensive one. To feminist theory building, Love Power is undoubtedly a very important book. Yet, I have some reservations. My main objection has to do with how the book in total presents and argues the new theory of "Love Power".

men. Thus. Anna Jonasdottir states: "the fact that our society is male-dominated in all areas does not mean that women have no influence at all; what they lack is authority - as women" (p. 25). I find this reasoning problematic. I would not argue against her observation that women's new participation, in particular the integration into representative politics, is supported by arguments on "difference". But these arguments are far from being limited to the humble justification described by Jonasdottir: that women should be seen as a useful complement to men. In practical politics, they are at least as often stated in terms of interests: the well-known arguments that women represent different interests, different values, from men. Thus the "utility" considerations which apply to women politicians do not only, or even primarily, address their usefulness to men. They as much, or more, concern some women's obligations to other women; the mandate to act as "women's own representatives". Neither is "utility" in this broader sense a consideration that entered politics with women. All of representative politics live with, and through, political mandates. We expect all our politicians to deliver on their promises, as categorical or/and vague as they might be. Although it is still rare to find any explicit "man's mandate", thinking in terms of women's mandates need not be that different. For centuries, arguments on difference have legitimized practices which kept women out of public life. Today they instead legitimize practices which secure, in collectivity, the presence of women. Why should this be contrary to authority? In the format of a book review it is hard to give credit to all the important discussion points that are raised through Anna Jonasdottir's work. Some - I know - have already been elaborated on. In Acta Sociologica in 1992, Øystein Gullvåg Holter presented a thorough comment on Jonasdottir's application of Marxist method and the discussion of exploitation. The article on "women's interests" and Beatrice Halsaa's comment, published in Kvinnovetenskaplig Tidsskrift in 1985 and 1987, are by now standard references whenever this concept is touched upon. Similarly, the debate on how "sex matters to democracy", between Anna Jonasdottir and Carole Pateman, which took place in this very journal in 1988, is an interesting one. Anna Jonasdottir's theoretical project is an ongoing one; Love Power and Political Interests presents her starting-point more than the finishing line. Clearly, it is a project that deserves to be noticed, and debated, all the way through.

Hege Skjeie, Institute for Social Research, Oslo