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Schweickart's notion of feminist reading is extremely problematic, especially when current theories surrounding gender are taken into account. She insists that "The feminist story will have at least two chapters: one concerned with feminist readings of male texts, and another with feminist readings of female texts....The story will speak of the difference between men and women, of the way the experience and perspective of women have been systematically and fallaciously assimilated into the generic masculine, and of the need to correct this error." (39) In other words, Schweickart insists on a reading which declares that men and women are, in fact, different. Instead of trying to eliminate the idea of inherent differences between men and women in order to put them on an equal footing, Schweickart would instead like to create an entire seperate field for women reading the literature of either women. In this way, her theory proposes something not much different from Woolf's isolationist theory in Three Guineas.

Schweickart's use of example is also very telling. While she draws upon multiple examples of a feminist reading of a male text, she chooses to use only Adrienne Rich's "Vesuvius at Home: The Power of Emily Dickinson" to examine a feminist reading. Schweickart seems to believe that this tells a "different" story from a criticism of a male author because Dickinson and Rich are both female. She admits that "Rich's interpretation of Dickinson...is frankly acknowledged as conditioned by her own experience as a twentieth-century feminist poet" (56). This reading is characterised as feminist because it attempts to establish a "connection" between the author and the critic. However, this seems to me to be just as likely between any author and critic of any gender where as little information is known as there is about Emily Dickinson. In fact, "Vesuvius at Home" is as much an essay about Rich as it is about Dickinson, in that the way Rich interprets Dickinson's work is so heavily influenced by her own experiences, especially as a lesbian, a point which Schweickart strangely overlooks. Is this what feminist criticism should be? Trying to find oneself in the work of another? Does Schweickart then believe the critique of male authors is different from female authors because it is theoretically easier for the critic to relate to someone of the same gender?

Finally, Schweickart does not allow for the possibility of a male feminist. This is extremely evident in the last paragraph, when she is speaking of "the hope that ultimately this community will expand to include everyone" and yet continues on to say that "we should strive to redeem the claim that it is possible for a woman, reading as a woman, to read literature written by women." (56) Obviously, Schweickart's definition of everyone does not include men. However, this definition is as dangerous to the goals of feminism as a move for equality as the patriarchal definition of everyone which often excludes women. While I believe that a feminist reading is both possible and highly desirable in understanding the formations of gender roles and the part they play in societies, I believe that Schweickart's "Toward a Feminist Theory of Reading" may have been going in the wrong direction.