Selected Book
Are Women Human?
- Paperback
- Author: Dorothy L. Sayers
- Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
- Release Date: November 2005
- ISBN-10: 0802829961
- ISBN-13: 9780802829962
- List Price: $9.00
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryOne of the first women to graduate from Oxford, Dorothy Sayers pursued her goals whether or not what she wanted to do was ordinarily understood to be "feminine." Sayers kept in mind that she was first of all a human being and aimed to be true not so much to her gender as to her humanity. The role of both men and women, in her view, was to find the work for which they were suited and to do it. While Sayers did not devote a great deal of time to talking or writing about feminism, she did explicitly address the issue of women's role in society in the two penetrating essays collected here. Though she wrote several decades ago, she still offers in her piquant style a sensible and conciliatory approach to ongoing gender issues. |
Customer Reviews
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Dorothy Sayers
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Sayers is one of my heroes. She is able to integrate a Biblical world view with the dilemmas of life, and bring a sense of humor to it all.
The Woman's Point of View
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This little essay (two really) was worth reading. I especially like the fact that the author absolutely refused to blame any failure on gender. Sayers seemed to have believed that women had the grit and good sense to do what they were good at.
Even though written in 1938 her thoughts remain pertinent.
She concerned her remarks, especially to those women who are schlorly, which of course, since the address was to a graduating class in a woman's college makes sense. She made it clear that those who are good at homemaking, beer brewing or aging cheese make equally valuable contributions.
Brilliant writer for any century!
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To make such simple statements and be so profound. This is Dorothy Sayer. She speaks to the equality of all people and the dignity they deserve. An original feminist, not a liberal. Read it!
way before her time
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Are women human? That's the stark question the British writer Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) posed in two short essays written in 1938, and originally published in 1947 in a collection of her essays called Unpopular Opinions. She had more than an academic interest in the question. When she finished Somerville College, Oxford, with first class honors in modern languages in 1915, they didn't yet grant degrees to women.
The gist of Sayers' argument is captured in a quote she takes from DH Lawrence: "Man is willing to accept woman as an equal, as a man in skirts, as an angel, a devil, a baby-face, an instrument, a bosom, a womb, a pair of legs, a servant, an encyclopedia, an ideal or an obscenity; the one thing he won't accept her as is a human being, a real human being of the feminine sex." Such was her radically simple argument, that women be acknowledged as human beings, and only subsequently labeled as a subset of human beings qualified by biology, culture, ethnicity, age, economics, nationality, and so on.
Sayers also made an observation about the Gospels. Women, she noted, were "the first at the Cradle and the last at the Cross." The many women who appear in the gospels, says Sayers, "had never known a man like Jesus--there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as 'The women, God help us!' or 'The ladies, God bless them!'; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything 'funny' about women's nature."
You can read this tiny volume in one sitting, and if you do you will be greatly rewarded. My Eerdmans edition has a short introduction by Mary McDermott Shideler.
A Resounding Yes,
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Containing Two Essays excerpted from Unpopular Opinions, Dorothy L. Sayers
Introduction by Mary McDermott Shideler
"Are Women Human?"
"The Human-Not-Quite-Human"
Dorothy Sayers, perhaps most famous for her detective novels, possessed a delightful wit and piercing discernment. This booklet contains a mere 47 pages, but the content inspires many moments of introspection afterwards.
I have seen her points from these essays excerpted most often in a feminist context, and this is unfortunate. As her reflections are primarily on the essence of humanity, and a defense of woman as belonging to that unique group, men would benefit as well as women in digesting her insights.
Sayers speaks to the dangers of "classing" women, whether in the historical repressive context, or the aggressive feminist movements. She talks about the importance and necessity of work, as it pertains to both the male and female. She gives lucid background on the myth of "women's work," while chastising the modern church for propagating an unfounded role distinction, and much more.
Despite the original copyright on the work being 1947, Sayers' essays are extremely relevant today, and more needed than ever. It is my desire to see a reprint that makes this work more accessible, but in the meantime, it is well worth the market price.
--The Medieval Chick
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