It should be the recognised base and background of our lives; but those lives must be lived in their true area, the world. And so lived, by both of us, all of us; shared in by the child, served in by the woman as well as the man; that world will grow to have the sense of intimacy, of permanent close attachment, of comfort and pleasure and rest, which now attaches only to the home.
So, living, really living in the world and loving it, the presence there of father, mother, and child will gradually bring out in it all the beauty and safety, the refreshment and strength we so vainly seek to ensure in our private home. The sense of duty, of reverence, of love, honestly transferred to the world we live in, will have its natural, its inevitable effect, and make that world our home at last.
The Man-made World, or: Our Androcentric Culture.
Many books have been written about women, as such; women as females.
This is a book about men, as such; men as males.
Women have been considered as a sex, and their character and actions so discussed.
This book considers men as a sex; and their character and actions are so discussed.
Too much of women's influence is dreaded as "feminization"--as likely to render our culture "effeminate."
Too much of men's influence is here studied as "masculization" and as having rendered our culture--there is no analogue for "effeminate."
We have heard much of the "eternal womanly;" this book treats of the eternal manly.
"_Cherchez la femme!_" is the old hue and cry; this book raises a new one: "_Cherchez l'homme!_"
We have had military novels, and marine novels; novels of adventure, of mystery and crime; religious novels, historic novels, novels of business life, trades unions and the labor question; novels of "local color," dialect novels; and romances pure and simple--also impure and complicated. This novel deals with the most practical problem of women's lives today--and settles it--NOT by cooperation.
Worthy of a place beside some of the weird masterpieces of Hawthorne and Poe.--_Literature._
As a short story it stands among the most powerful produced in America.--_Chicago News._
Charlotte Perkins Gilman has added a third to her great trilogy of books on economic subjects as they affect our daily life, particularly in the home. Mrs. Gilman is by far the most brilliant woman writer of our day, and this new volume, which she calls "Human Work," is a glorification of labor.--_New Orleans Picayune._