The Intelligent Woman's Guide -- GBS witty & on target

[govegan]

Full title: The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism published in 1928 by Brentano's, author: Bernard Shaw

Picked up an original copy at a great used book store recently.

Dedication: To my sister-in-law, Mary Stewart Cholmondely, the intelligent woman to whose question this book is the best answer I can make.

From "A Foreward for American Readers":

Finally, I have been asked whether there are any intelligent women in America. There must be; for politically the men there are such futile gossips that the United States could not possibly carry on unless there were some sort of practical intelligence back of them. But I will let you into a secret which bears on this point. By this book I shall get at the American men through the American women. In America as in England every male citizen is supposed to understand politics and economics and finance and diplomacy and all the rest of a democratic voter's business on the strength of a Fundamentalist education that excites the public scorn of the Sioux chiefs who have seen their country taken from them by palefaced lunatics. He is ashamed to expose the depths of his ignorance by asking elementary questions; and I dare not insult him by volunteering the missing information. But he has no objection to my talking to his wife as to one who knows nothing of these matters: quite the contrary. And if he should chance to overhear-----!!!

I have not read the entire work yet, but have been finding fascinating excerpts.

One more quote: "The social friction set up by inequality of income is intense: society is like a machine designed to work smoothly with the oil of equality, into the bearings of which some malignant demon keeps pouring the sand of inequality."

[ismnotwasm]

1. Here's a site with some exerpts;

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/shaw/index.htm

From one of the essays;
"THE effect of the system on women was worse in some respects than men. As no industrial employer would employ a woman if he could get a man for the same money, women who wished to get any industrial employment could do so only by offering to do it for less than men. This was possible, because even when the man's wage was a starvation wage it was the starvation wage of a family, not of a single person. Out of it the man bad to pay for subsistence of his wife and children, without whom the Capitalist system would soon have come to an end for want of any young workers to replace the old ones. Therefore even when the men's wages were down to the lowest point at which their wives and children could be kept alive, a single woman could take less without being any worse off than her married neighbors and their children. In this way it became a matter of course that women should be paid less than men; and when any female rebel claimed to be paid as much as a man for the same work ('Equal wages for equal work'), the employer shut her up with two arguments: first, 'If you don't take the lower wage there are plenty of others who will', and, second, 'If I have to pay a man's wages I will get a man to do the work'."

[govegan]

2. Thanks for the link......

I like that piece on the Lysenko Muddle.

The last chapter, simply titled "Peroration", in the book of the original post is brilliant, very nicely done. I would that an online excerpt existed. I may post a couple of the best paragraphs if I find the time. Pertinent thoughts for today.