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Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 1860-1935

"Herland"

To grow up and "be a man,"
to "act like a man"--the meaning and connotation is wide indeed.
That vast background is full of marching columns of men,
of changing lines of men, of long processions of men; of men
steering their ships into new seas, exploring unknown mountains,
breaking horses, herding cattle, ploughing and sowing and reaping,
toiling at the forge and furnace, digging in the mine, building
roads and bridges and high cathedrals, managing great businesses,
teaching in all the colleges, preaching in all the churches;
of men everywhere, doing everything--"the world."
And when we say WOMEN, we think FEMALE--the sex.
But to these women, in the unbroken sweep of this two-
thousand-year-old feminine civilization, the word WOMAN called
up all that big background, so far as they had gone in social
development; and the word MAN meant to them only MALE--the sex.
Of course we could TELL them that in our world men did
everything; but that did not alter the background of their minds.


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