When you think about it, the marriage of fashion and feminism, presided over by the ever more sacerdotal New Yorker, has a certain inevitability to it. Even the depiction of a female counterpart to the magazine’s trademark Regency dandy, Eustace Tilley, on the cover of its special issue for February 26–March 4 looks far more convincing as an emblem of elegance than poor old Eustace ever did. The naturalness of the union is presumably why it occurs to none of the authors represented in this number, not even the self-proclaimed “crone,” Mary Daly, that the sisters might be slightly compromised in their claim to intellectual seriousness when their effusions, their complaints, their confessions, their manifestos, are all sponsored by slick photos of emaciated model-girls promising sexual power over men with the help of Versace or Estée Lauder or Calvin Klein or Donna Karan.

“What is it that makes a woman alluring?& ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase