Are Women Human? Penetrating, Sensible, and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society [Paperback]

Dorothy L. Sayers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 6, 2005

Introduction by Mary McDermott Shideler

One of the first women to graduate from Oxford University, Dorothy Sayers pursued her goals whether or not what she wanted to do was ordinarily understood to be "feminine." Sayers did not devote a great deal of time to talking or writing about feminism, but she did explicitly address the issue of women's role in society in the two classic essays collected here.

Central to Sayers's reflections is the conviction that both men and women are first of all human beings and must be regarded as essentially much more alike than different. We are to be true not so much to our sex as to our humanity. The proper role of both men and women, in her view, is to find the work for which they are suited and to do it.

Though written several decades ago, these essays still offer in Sayers's piquant style a sensible and conciliatory approach to ongoing gender issues.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The New York Times Book Review "Forthright and commonsensical. Christianity Today Offers pointed and witty arguments for treating women as individuals, not as a homogeneous class."

About the Author

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) was a lay theologian, Christian apologist, and friend of C.�S. Lewis. Her numerous writings include detective stories centered on Lord Peter Wimsey, studies of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, radio plays such as The Man Born to Be King, and translations of Dante.

Product Details

• Paperback: 75 pages
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (August 6, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802829961
• ISBN-13: 978-0802829962
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.2 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,909 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #34 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Gender & Sexuality

More About the Author

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) was a playwright, scholar, and acclaimed author of mysteries, best known for her books starring the gentleman sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.

Born in Oxford, England, Sayers, whose father was a reverend, grew up in the Bluntisham rectory and won a scholarship to Oxford University where she studied modern languages and worked at the publishing house Blackwell's, which published her first book of poetry in 1916.

Years later, working as an advertising copywriter, Sayers began work on Whose Body?, a mystery novel featuring dapper detective Lord Peter Wimsey. Over the next two decades, Sayers published ten more Wimsey novels and several short stories, crafting a character whose complexity was unusual for the mystery novels of the time.

In 1936, Sayers brought Lord Peter Wimsey to the stage in a production of Busman's Honeymoon, a story which she would publish as a novel the following year. The play was so successful that she gave up mystery writing to focus on the stage, producing a series of religious works culminating in The Man Born to Be King (1941) a radio drama about the life of Jesus.

She also wrote theological essays and criticism during and after World War II, and in 1949 published the first volume of a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (which she considered to be her best work).

Dorothy Sayers died of a heart attack in 1957.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Peter Wimsey is the least of the Dorothy Sayers legacy! September 7, 1997

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Your first association with the name Dorothy
Sayers will be, naturally, as the creator of the
urbane, noble sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey. If
you've read the Peter Wimsey novels in order, you may have noticed that Sayers invested more and more humanity and depth in him as the series progressed.

Since she revealed so much depth as a mystery novelist, I decided to try her out as an essayist. "Are Women Human?" is a slight pamphlet with an introduction and two essays which can be read in one sitting. As you finish the last page you will find yourself wondering why so little has changed in the last sixty years!

Sayers applied intelligence and humor (excuse me, humour) to her seemingly rhetorical question "Are Women Human?". Her answer, like most wise answers, is simple. Beyond the obvious "of course", Sayers posits that "male" and "female" are only adjectives modifying the noun human. Therefore, humanity is the common denominator, and each human should be judged on the person's individual merits -- creative, lethargic, witty or plodding. Whatever the case may be.

This is a book that should be required reading for every high school student -- young people who are in the process of sorting out all kinds of identity issues. It may not be too late for most adults to benefit from this little gem, either!<P

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars way before her time May 31, 2007

By Daniel B. Clendenin

Format:Paperback

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.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Resounding Yes, February 22, 2005

By BooksieDaisy VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

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