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Women As World Builders; Studies In Modern Feminism
Women As World Builders; Studies In Modern Feminism
Women As World Builders; Studies In Modern Feminism
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Women As World Builders; Studies In Modern Feminism

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Originally published in 1913, this classic book contains an interesting study in feminism, and would make an excellent addition to the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in the subject. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 21, 2012
ISBN9781447484349
Women As World Builders; Studies In Modern Feminism
Author

Floyd Dell

Floyd James Dell (June 28, 1887 – July 23, 1969) was an American newspaper and magazine editor, literary critic, novelist, playwright, and poet. Dell has been called "one of the most flamboyant, versatile and influential American Men of Letters of the first third of the 20th Century." In Chicago, he was editor of the nationally syndicated Friday Literary Review. As editor and critic, Dell's influence is seen in the work of many major American writers from the first half of the 20th century. A lifelong poet, he was also a best-selling author, as well as a playwright whose hit Broadway comedy, Little Accident (1928), was made into a Hollywood movie. Dell wrote extensively on controversial social issues of the early 20th century, and played a major part in the political and social movements originating in New York City's Greenwich Village during the 1910s & 1920s. As editor of left-wing magazine The Masses, Dell was twice put on trial for publishing subversive literature. (Wikipedia)

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    Women As World Builders; Studies In Modern Feminism - Floyd Dell

    Women as World Builders

    CHAPTER I

    THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT

    THE feminist movement can be dealt with in two ways: it can be treated as a sociological abstraction, and discussed at length in heavy monographs; or it can be taken as the sum of the action of a lot of women, and taken account of in the lives of individual women. The latter way would be called journalistic, had not the late William James used it in his Varieties of Religious Experience. It is a method which preserves the individual flavor, the personal tone and color, which, after all, are the life of any movement. It is, therefore, the method I have chosen for this book.

    The ten women whom I have chosen are representative: they give the quality of the woman’s movement of today. Charlotte Perkins Gilman—Jane Addams—Emmeline Pankhurst—Olive Schreiner—Isadora Duncan—Beatrice Webb—Emma Goldman—Margaret Dreier Robins—Ellen Key: surely in these women,* if anywhere, is to be found the soul of modern feminism!

    One may inquire why certain other names are not included. There is Maria Montessori, for instance. Her ideas on the education of children are of the utmost importance, and their difference from those of Froebel is another illustration of the difference between the practical minds of women and the idealistic minds of men. But Madame Montessori’s relation to the feminist movement is, after all, ancillary. A tremendous lot remains to be done in the way of cooperation for the management of households and the education of children before women who are wives and mothers will be set free to take their part in the work of the outside world. But it is the setting of mothers free, and not the specific kind of education which their children are to receive, which is of interest to us here.

    Again, one may inquire why, since I have not blinked the fact that the feminist movement is making for a revolution of values in sex—why I have not included any woman who has distinguished herself by defying antiquated conventions which are supposed to rule the relations of the sexes. This requires a serious answer. The adjustment of one’s social and personal relations, so far as may be, to accord with one’s own convictions—that is not feminism, in my opinion: it is only common sense. The attempt to discover how far social laws and traditions must be changed to accord with the new position of women in society—that is a different thing, and I have dealt with it in the paper on Ellen Key.

    Another reason is my belief that it is with woman as producer that we are concerned in a study of feminism, rather than with woman as lover. The woman who finds her work will find her love—and I do not doubt will cherish it bravely. But the woman who sets her love above everything else I would gently dismiss from our present consideration as belonging to the courtesan type.

    It is not very well understood what the courtesan really is, and so I pause to describe her briefly. It is not necessary to transgress certain moral customs to be a courtesan; on the other hand, the term may accurately be applied to women of irreproachable morals. There are some women who find their destiny in the bearing and rearing of children, others who demand independent work like men, and still others who make a career of charming, stimulating, and comforting men. These types, of course, merge and combine; and then there is that vast class of women who belong to none of these types—who are not good for anything!

    The first of these types may be called the mother type, the second the worker type, and the third—the kind of women which is not drawn either to motherhood or to work, but which is greatly attracted to men and which possesses special qualities of sympathy, stimulus, and charm, and is content with the more or less disinterested exercise of these qualities—this may without prejudice be called the courtesan type. It will be seen that the courtesan qualities may find play as well within legal marriage as without, and that the transgression of certain moral customs is only incidental to the type. Where circumstances encourage it, and where the moral tradition is weakened by experience or temperament, the moral customs

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