| | 1 | Author: | Kirkland, Winifred Margaretta | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Joys of Being a Woman and Other Papers  | | | | Published: | 1993 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Some years ago there appeared in the "Atlantic" an
essay entitled "The Joys of Being a Negro." With a
purpose analogous to that of the author, I am moved to
declare the real delights of the apparently
downtrodden, and in the face of a bulky literature
expressive of pathos and protest, to confess frankly
the joys of being a woman. It is a feminist argument
accepted as axiomatic that every woman would be a man
if she could be, while no man would be a woman if he
could help it. Every woman knows this is not fact but
falsehood, yet knows also that it is one of those
falsehoods on which depends the stability of the
universe. The idea that every woman is desirous of
becoming a man is as comforting to every male as its
larger corollary is alarming, namely, that women as a
mass have resolved to become men. The former notion
expresses man's view of femininity, and is flattering;
the latter expresses his view of feminism, and is
fearsome. Man's panic, indeed, before the hosts he
thinks he sees advancing, has lately become so acute
that there is danger of his paralysis. Now his
paralysis would defeat not only the purposes of
feminism, but also the sole purpose of woman's conduct
toward man from Eve's time to ours, a course of which
feminism is only a modern and consistent example. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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