Can women be gentlemen?

by Gertrude Atherton

With chapters on women as possible liars, workaholics, gold-diggers, and the like, with other speculations, as well

Unknown Binding

About the author

Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton (October 30, 1857 – June 14, 1948) was a prominent and prolific American author. Many of her novels are set in her home state of California. Her bestseller Black Oxen (1923) was made into a silent movie of the same name. In addition to novels, she wrote short stories, essays, and articles for magazines and newspapers on such issues as feminism, politics, and war. She was strong-willed, independent-minded, and sometimes controversial.

She wrote using the pen names Asmodeus and Frank Lin, a play on her middle name.

Reviews

[El Mar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I read some of this book approximately in the mid 1980s. Otherwise it was a book with a similar title and/of the same or similar topic. (It could have been "In Defense of Men."
From what I recall the book (for one thing) addressed the fact that at the time, there was a lot said in the news and in political discussions, and there was a lot of social awareness about the fact that the relationships between men and women, be it in marriage, dating, flirting, step-families, (etc) have always ( with few exceptions) been the kind in which women are subject to domestic violence ( a relatively new term and concept back then) . However this book (and perhaps certain others like it) brought up the fact that very often , at least regarding what happens in modern times, women are considered purely the victims because whenever some physical or perhaps other kind of "fight" or "disagreement" come between a man and woman the woman is likely to be physically harmed. However it does not mean that men always out-rightly victimize or "attack" women, but sometimes are defending themselves or maybe are defending any children in the relationship from a violent or manipulative mother or step-mother or girlfriend of the father (etc).
So the "fact" that women often end up injured or maybe dead because of a relationship (with a man) that has gone wrong is not proof that men are vicious monsters , nor are women always innocent and always "victims."
The book does delve into a disturbing fact that when men are "hurt" ( sometimes physically) in a heterosexual relationship , then when or should they try to defend themselves they are considered "wrong" for doing so simply because by nature they can easily defend themselves against a female.

Perhaps the author's message about how men are always maligned when they are sometimes the victims would be completely unacceptable now-a-days because (for one thing) of the so-called "Me-Too" movement which showed how women are exploited and manipulated in power-relationships regarding employment, job advancement, etc (as of this writing there is a major issue regarding U.S. Women's Professional Soccer and how certain male coaches of professional women soccer players reportedly asked sexual favors of certain players in order to be chosen for the team and/or so as to avoid being put through particularly hard physical exercise).

If this is the book that I actually read decades back, it may be considered "outdated" today. But back when it was written it was very much like a book about "white guilt" in a world where non-white people have been politically established as outright victims and never oppressors or
instigators of harm.
This book may have had to be written differently today.
Very controversial and necessary to consider this point of view.

[Kelsey]

I became interested in Atherton because of a post about her on the wonderful Furrowed Middlebrow blog. The Wikipedia article about her is pretty decent and gives a good sense for her life. She was born in San Francisco in 1857 and married into the wealthy Atherton family (for whom the town is named). Her writing career began with a serialized romance and then got into some really experimental stuff, the most popular of which was Black Oxen, which was about a woman who underwent glandular therapy, a medical treatment meant to reverse aging. Something Atherton actually did. Who knew.

She was also noted as an early California feminist, which is right up my alley and why I chose to read this book of essays. The essays in the book aren't wholly about feminism, which is maybe partially why it hasn't retained popularity. For example, the final essay is called "The Wonder Race" and it explores a book that retells the Bible as a historical justification for the 'dominance' of the Anglo-Saxon race. Rough. Atherton isn't exactly endorsing this ideology and was kinda anti-fascism in her lifetime, but it's super racist and also uninteresting.

The book also retells historical events that are...pretty untrue. For example, I loved the retelling of a matriarchal Egyptian society in 'Are Women Born Liars?' except that it didn't actually happen. But, I liked where she ends this one:

...equality which is once more under way. Nature certainly had it in mind when she planted male hormones in women and female hormones in men. ... Man and Woman are merely human nature under two different labels. Two horns on the same old cow. (24)

(Wouldn't that be a cool poster?)

I also like in the third essay that she's like: OF COURSE THE (WHITE) WOMEN'S REVOLUTION IS HAPPENING. MEN WORK ALL THE TIME AND THEN COME HOME SUPER TIRED AND ARE BORING, SO WOMEN HAVE TO FIND *SOME* WAY TO FILL THEIR TIME, SO THEY HANG OUT WITH EACH OTHER.

One night at a dinner when the subject of husbands was under discussion, a young man asked me: 'What in your opinion *is* the ideal husband?' I cast about hastily in my mind and then replied: 'Why - no husband at all.'

Of course there was a general laugh, but it had occurred to me that I had never envied any women her husband (as a husband) and never at any time would have exchanged my freedom for 'the best man that ever lived,' whatever that may mean. For some years after my husband died I used to day-dream romantically about the perfect mate, until I reluctantly came to the conclusion that no such being existed, on this planet at least, and that I should not know what to do with him if he had. (47)

She follows this up with the idea that men and women meet and marry because they want mutual happiness, but this falls apart because they lack similar interests or the time to cultivate a friendship. And then The man is haunted by vague regrets. The woman lives on hope (48).

(Atherton also says she's hated certain public men so much that, if she were a witch, she would blast them out of existence. Girl, wow.)

One may live to be a hundred yet cannot be said to have reached maturity unless he has learned the supreme lesson of life: that the inhabitants of Planet Earth were endowed with an inferior brand of human nature. (51)

Also, kudos to her for the essay 'No More Beauties' where she literally just names all the hot ladies of the day. It's so weird, but kind of great.