In this chapter from the book Illuminating Video, Gever quickly outlines the the 1980s position of feminism in the Unites States, and then continues to describe video as essential medium for feminists in the country's current climate. She argues video is being used as key medium to work against the grain as feminists turn to critically assess and counter conventional-television presentation-styles to unsettle perceptions of reality. Martha illustrates this by outlining six different video-documentary style works (all made by women artists) that fall into this category. She concludes by observing a critical attitude present in each of the works towards the following topics: conceptions of public and private sphere, the nuclear family, racial identity, national identity, consumer culture, corporate power.