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The Man-Made World; or, Our Androcentric Culture by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
page 8 of 169 (04%)
explained only as a female.

She has needed volumes of such excuse and explanation; also, apparently,
volumes of abuse and condemnation. In any library catalogue we may find
books upon books about women: physiological, sentimental, didactic,
religious--all manner of books about women, as such. Even to-day in the
works of Marholm--poor young Weininger, Moebius, and others, we find the
same perpetual discussion of women--as such.

This is a book about men--as such. It differentiates between the human
nature and the sex nature. It will not go so far as to allege man's
masculine traits to be all that excuse, or explain his existence: but it
will point out what are masculine traits as distinct from human ones,
and what has been the effect on our human life of the unbridled
dominance of one sex.

We can see at once, glaringly, what would have been the result of giving
all human affairs into female hands. Such an extraordinary and
deplorable situation would have "feminized" the world. We should have
all become "effeminate."

See how in our use of language the case is clearly shown. The
adjectives and derivatives based on woman's distinctions are alien and
derogatory when applied to human affairs; "effeminate"--too female,
connotes contempt, but has no masculine analogue; whereas
"emasculate"--not enough male, is a term of reproach, and has no
feminine analogue. "Virile"--manly, we oppose to "puerile"--childish,
and the very word "virtue" is derived from "vir"--a man.

Even in the naming of other animals we have taken the male as the race
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