Of Men and Women.
Buck, Pearl S. Of Men And Women. New York: The John Day Company, (1941).
8vo, 203pp; dark red cloth lettered in gold at front and spine; top edge stained slate blue; tan dust-jacket printed in maroon and blue; some light smudges to jacket; gold lettering a shade dim; an exceptionally fine copy in fresh, bright condition.
First edition. With a Foreword by the writer. Nine essays on the relationship of men and women and, as a consequence, the place of women in American society. The essays: “The Discord,” “The Home in China and America,” “The American Man,” “The American Woman,” “Monogamy,” “Woman as Angels,” “Women and War,” “The Education of Men and Woman for Each Other,” and “Women and Freedom.”
This 1941 collection represents “her most extended statement on the subject of gender in America.” With World War II a grim shadow on the horizon, Buck points out that American democracy, if it is to survive, must have women as full and equal participants. The vote has given them nominal access to the political arena, but they still remain outside “the engine rooms” of society. She scorns the false sentiment, which places women at the heart of the American home, more specifically in the midst of unending domestic duties. With thinking reminiscent of Margaret Fuller and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Pearl Buck declares women can succeed at any profession: “A woman “may sit upon a throne and rule a nation, she may sit upon the bench and be a judge, she may be the foreman in a mill, she could if she would be a bridge builder or a machinist or anything else.” The only barrier is tradition; “Break it” she urges. When Of Men And Women appeared, the New York Times reviewer, for instance, noted the similarities between Pearl Buck’s analysis of gender and that of Virginia Woolf. The American Association of University Women arranged for a special edition of the book for its membership. In 1971, eight years after the publication of The Feminist Mystique, which instigated the modern wave of feminism in the United States, Of Men And Women was reprinted.
Buck’s biographer notes that she, as a writer and humanitarian, has virtually disappeared from the American cultural scene, despite some 70 books and having won the Nobel Prize in Literature (only one of two American women to do so), the Pulitzer, the Howells Medal, a dozen honorary degrees, and her remarkable work with children, civil rights, and East-West understanding. The biography has stimulated a reevaluation of Pearl Buck’s significance in 20th-century feminist thought, firmly established with the publication of Of Men And Women.
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