Are Women Human?

One of the first women to graduate from Oxford, Dorothy Sayers pursued her goals whether or not what she wanted to do was ordinarily understood to be "feminine." Sayers kept in mind that she was first of all a human being and aimed to be true not so much to her gender as to her humanity. The role of both men and women, in her view, was to find the work for which they were suited and to do it.

While Sayers did not devote a great deal of time to talking or writing about feminism, she did explicitly address the issue of women's role in society in the two penetrating essays collected here. Though she wrote several decades ago, she still offers in her piquant style a sensible and conciliatory approach to ongoing gender issues.