THE CHURCH AND THE SECOND SEX

by Mary Daly ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 1968

The Roman Catholic Church is, among other more commendable things, the ultimate bastion of masculine prerogative in the modern world. Miss Daly is determined to correct that injustice, and she sets about the task with a will and a wit that does credit to her talents as well as to her sex. The first part of the book is a statement of the charges against the Church as put forward by existentialist Simone de Beauvoir (whose Second Sex has inspired the book and its title and its author). Then comes a historical survey, beginning with the thinly disguised misogyny cum misogamy of the Fathers to the more logical and benevolent anti-feminism of Aquinas to the comparative equality of Vatican II. The final chapters suggest methods by which anti-feminist prejudice may be overcome in the Church; e.g., by the admission of women to the priesthood. The author is no screeching suffragette chaining herself, even metaphorically, to the Vatican gate; she is a temperate, moderate and able advocate of equal rights within the Church--an advocacy that gains in credibility by virtue of Miss Daly's own expertise as a theologian of the practical and the attainable. Given the recent successes of works much inferior to this on the same subject, The Church and the Second Sex should find a substantial audience in the sexes both second and first.

Pub Date: April 10, 1968

ISBN: 0807011010

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1968

Categories: NONFICTION