After scrutinizing the political background of the movement, its sources and its common ground with other radical movements of the sixties, Mitchell goes on to describe the organization of women's liberation in Western Europe and in America and to locate the areas of women's oppression. Part II presents her own theories, which focus on four key  work, reproduction, sexuality and the socialization of children, and includes a detailed study of the modern family and a reevaluation of Freud's work in this field.