The descent of women

the long version

This book is an examination of the roles of men and women and the rise of the feminist movement by a senior professor of philosophy, using Darwin's Descent of Man as a starting point. Descent is a challenge to excesses of the revolutionary zeal of some writers of the feminist movement. In the course of illustrating the thesis that feminist thinking has yet to mature, particularly if it is to reach balance, self-criticism, and fairness to men, the author introduces the secondary thesis that the feminist movement should stop blaming all men for a long suffering history of women. Men have suffered, too, as the human animal emerged from a moral swamp in which sexual selection has played an important role. The author sees the feminist movement as a contribution to our expanding self-consciousness as a species and, in his criticism of radical feminism, seeks a richer future not a return to an oppressive past.