Module 2: Section A
Two Sides, Part 1
Margaret Fuller and the Sexes
Margaret Fuller, author of "The Great Lawsuit; Man Versus Men, Woman Versus Women," was a transcendentalist and one of the first feminists. She believed in the possibility of equality between the sexes. She wanted to show her reader that men and women really had much in commonRead and listen to part of her groundbreaking work below.
"The sexes should not only correspond to and appreciate one another, but prophesy to one another. In individual instances this happens. Two persons love in one another the future good which they aid one another to unfold. This is very imperfectly done as yet in the general life. Man has gone but [a] little way, now he is waiting to see whether woman can keep step with him, but instead of calling out like a good brother: You can do it if you only think so, or impersonally: Anyone can do what he tries to do[.] [H]e often discourages with school-boy brag: Girls can't do that, girls can't play ball. But let anyone defy their taunts, break through, and be brave and secure, they rend the air with shouts...
Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But, in fact, they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman."
(Margaret Fuller, The Great Lawsuit; Man Versus Men, Woman Versus Women)
Now, continue on to the next page to discover more about transcendentalism, the sexes, and rhetoric.
