The New Women and the Old Men: Love, Sex and the Woman Question

Brandon, Ruth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0436067226 ISBN 13: 9780436067228

Publisher: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, 1990

Sexual politics is far from being a recent subject of debate. In the 1880s it occupied a position of central importance in certain radical circles in London, where intellectuals such as Beatrice and Sidney Webb, H.G.Wells, George Bernard Shaw and others debated how sexual relationships should be conducted, and how the ideal socialist household should be organized. Using as the basis of her research the letters, pamphlets and diaries of members of this circle, Ruth Brandon examines the questions and conflicts which they had to face. Particularly, she focuses on the artistic women at the centre of the circle, describing how each was forced to compromise her ideals in order to fit a pattern determined by the men in her life.

From the Publisher:

żA book of lasting importanceż INDEPENDENT
Examining the lives, and more importantly, the marriages and sexual relationships of this fascinating set of late-Victorian intellectuals and social reformers, THE NEW WOMEN AND THE OLD MEN brilliantly combines social history, biography and feminist analysis.

Praise for THE NEW WOMEN AND THE OLD MEN

‘A fusion of biography, social history, and analysis more absorbing than fiction . . . It is an unceasingly entertaining and stimulating exercise for the mind’ THE TIMES

‘Ruth Brandon writes with a crisp, incisive wit . . . [and] creates a powerful wish to explore her territory further’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘Fascinating’ SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY