Book Review: Are Women Human?

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
2005, 69 pgs.

How did I miss Dorothy L. Sayers for so long? This pair of thoughtful and witty essays speaks eloquently the language that I fear still rings true: a struggle exists for the recognition that the state of one being human does not have to be mediated by a label of gender, race, ethnicity, age, etc. Women, men, boys, girls, blacks, whites, Latinos -- we are all human beings before we are any of those other things. Can we not recognize people as people and as individuals before we lump ourselves into groups and assign generalities that are viewed as immutable truth? Sayers gave this speech at a women's group in 1938 - I am a little saddened that its relevance has not faded.

The second essay in the book, "The Human-Not-Quite-Human" was written directly to the Church, and is another argument for the recognition of each person as an individual, and the ability of the individual to exercise his or her giftings and talents, regardless of "proper role" limitations. She ends this with a pointed jab at the male authority of the Church and its abandonment of the character of Christ as it is today exercised. "Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were the first at the Cradle and last at the Cross," she wrote. "They had never known a man like this Man - there never has been such another. ... There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything "funny" about woman's nature. But we might easily deduce it from His contemporaries, and from His prophets before Him, and from His Church to this day..."

I think this is a must-read for any person interested in the evolution of gender roles or the movement toward a more whole society. Entertaining, engaging, thought-provoking, a quick read - there is no reason NOT to pick this up.