SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN THE FEMINIST FIN-DE-SIÈCLE AND A NEW READING OF OLIVE SCHREINER’S FROM MAN TO MAN

Abstract

BY THE LAST DECADES OF THE nineteenth century, the various aspects of the “Woman Question” had drawn many women into public controversy. Their published writings commonly advance both moral and practical arguments, and often cite supporting statistical evidence and scholarly opinions as well. But not all their writing is of this kind. Feminist¹ argument around the turn of the century also generated some fine rhetorical flights which stand out from their more prosaic surroundings. Passages of elevated and figurative persuasive writing are found in essays, monographs, and occasionally novels. Today these writings may be found in the many anthologies of “first-wave” feminist writing, which draw on the London journals, especially the Contemporary Review. Female activists in America often use a similar style. Consistent features in this rhetoric suggest that something like a distinctive feminist authorial position had developed.