The new collection of essays by Susan Sontag, "On Women," edited by her son David Rieff and with a foreword by writer and critic Merve Emre, includes works written and published from 1972 to 1975, during one of the most resonant periods of the women's movement in the United States. Sontag's polemical and sometimes radical ideas about what it means to be a woman in the modern world are presented in critical essays, a questionnaire for a Marxist Spanish-language magazine, an interview for an American publication, and a discussion with poet and feminist Adrienne Rich.

Blending lively journalism with comprehensive analysis, without silencing other voices and addressing audiences in different countries, Sontag raises questions about the double standard of aging, women's sexual validity, relationships among women, the connections between the women's movement and other revolutionary movements, women's self-oppression, the functioning of beauty ideals, the eroticization of fascism, the plurality of feminist positions, and more.

This collection reflects the turbulent — and now historical — era of the early 1970s, as well as Sontag's own journey, while remaining critically relevant to this day.