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A review by ninjakiwi12
Are Women Human? by Dorothy L. Sayers
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Fun(ny) fact(s): We had to read the first essay for my class on Women in the History of Christianity, so I got the book from the library to read the other one!
Favorite quote/image: "Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man– there never has been another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flatted or coaxed or patronised; 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.” (pg. 68-69)
Honorable mention: "A woman is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences, and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual. What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person...that has been the very common error into which men have frequently fallen about women–and it is the error into which feminist women are, perhaps, a little inclined to fall about themselves." (pg. 24-25)
Why: Although I do not agree with everything Sayers says (but also, when do we ever agree with something with a nuanced argument wholeheartedly?), I did find her to be quite witty and convincing in these two essays about women's role in society and how women are fundamentally human before anything else.
Favorite quote/image: "Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man– there never has been another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flatted or coaxed or patronised; 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.” (pg. 68-69)
Honorable mention: "A woman is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences, and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual. What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person...that has been the very common error into which men have frequently fallen about women–and it is the error into which feminist women are, perhaps, a little inclined to fall about themselves." (pg. 24-25)
Why: Although I do not agree with everything Sayers says (but also, when do we ever agree with something with a nuanced argument wholeheartedly?), I did find her to be quite witty and convincing in these two essays about women's role in society and how women are fundamentally human before anything else.