VIRGINIA WOOLF once described woman as "the most discussed animal in the universe." A popular subject in anything from sonnets to surgery, she has been serenaded, dissected, romanticized and analyzed by generations of literati, medical men, scientists and students. If these men fixed their eyes intently on the figure of woman, however, the historian remained somewhat more aloof. Usually, in his considered judgement, women were essentially unimportant to his field ('the study of man'), and he dealt with them incidentally, if at all.

But the rise of the American feminist movement has created a respectable place in historical circles for the study of women, and even a demand for popular literature on the subject. For Her Own Good by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English should be a bestseller in this market. A comprehensive, readable history of Americanwomen and their integration into a male-dominated society, the book reinterprets traditional American history, serving it up in a palatable form to the more or less liberated woman of the seventies. Subtitled 150 Years of the Experts' Advice to Women, the study recounts not only what women did, but how men reacted. Specifically, Ehrenreich and English show how over two centuries the experts in the medical and social "sciences" redefined the experiences of women, and used their professional authority to shape women's lives.

Ehrenreich and English had to cover a lot of ground to get from the domestic and industrious woman of the pre-industrial era in England and America to the Cosmopolitan woman of the 1970s. Although they have a flair for interesting detail, they don't offer enough rigorous evidence to qualify as scholarly literature. Tending to linger over obvious cases of misguided science like the gory methods doctors used in the 19th century to 'cure' their patients or the moral weaknesses of contemporary pop psychology, the authors gloss over some of the more complex issues.

Their main argument--that conceptions of illness and health are culture-bound and that these notions have reinforced limiting social roles for women--is, in general, well supported. But by arguing that the medical profession saw women as inherently ill in the 19th century or as psychologically pathological in the 20th, they seem to cavalierly attribute malicious motives to doctors, suggesting they are the vanguard of a sexist society. These doctors, Ehrenreich and English contend, seek out rebelliousness among women and squelch it by spiriting away the sick patient before she can express her protest. The doctors "betrayed the trust" innocent women placed in them. By focusing on the theories and treatments the doctors invented to keep women in their place, the authors evade an analysis of the processes of social repression.

THE THEORETICAL trappings of For Her Own Good are its most serious drawback. Unfortunately, for the easily discouraged reader, the hefty first chapter is hard going. An oversimplified Marxist interpretation of the industrial revolution accompanies broad generalizations about women before and after and allows the authors to construct a dichotomy of rationalist and romantic views of women. The romanticists idealize pre-industrial women who supposedly led full, productive lives. Although they were inferior in status to men, the argument goes, they worked so hard that they didn't have time to worry about it. The post-industrial romanticist maintains that women should remain in the home as before. But the authors argue that gradually the woman becomes an ornament, left with an unproductive, circumscribed life.

The rationalist theory, put forth by early suffragists as well as modern feminists such as Betty Friedan, claims that rationality dictates even the life of the family, and will eventually produce a world in which women would have the same opportunities and responsibilities as men. Ehrenreich and English contend that both of these theories fail to provide a viable role for women. This failure resulted in a cult of professionalism; women became dependent on experts who could explain why they felt unfulfilled.

If the theoretical framework of the first chapter is simplistic, it's nothing compared to the radical vision in the last. Dismissing the rationalist/romanticist alternatives as idealistically and practically bankrupt, Ehrenreich and English think women are floundering without a satisfying social role. They predictably look back to the period they romanticized--pre-industrial society, a time when the authors say women had productive and meaningful lives. Making an unconvincing connection, the authors try to tie together the pre-industrial unity of "caring with craft," the "promise of a collective strength and knowledge" which they suddenly find in industrialized society, and "the impulses to truth in each one of us," and come up with a vague, radical solution:

A synthesis which transcends both the rationalist and romanticist poles must necessarily challenge the masculinist social order itself.... This is the most radical vision but there are no human alternatives. The Market, with its financial abstractions, deformed science, and obsession with dead things--must be pushed back to the margins. And the 'womanly' values of community and caring must rise to the center as the only human principles.

A theory of change it's not. Stirring rhetoric it's not. This optimistic afterword ends the book on a false note.

FORTUNATELY the theoretical sections are only tacked on at the beginning and at the end of the book. By and large, For Her Own Good is easy and entertaining to read right down to the footnotes. Crusading women are eminently quotable. Obsolete medical practices with an "inherent drift toward homicide" make for interesting, if lurid reading. Ehrenreich and English even render the home economics movement bearable.

For Her Own Good is not a scholarly master-piece. But the authors have done a competent job of rewriting conventional history from a feminist perspective. Their book is a valuable contribution to popular literature, and they should be applauded for this ambitious effort. Maybe next time they'll be more successful.