from the standpoint of histori-cal materialism.

She begins with the Stone Age, when woman performed a large part of the work in the field she shared with man, in addition to her work in the home; then she gives a detailed account of woman's condition in history among all peoples and nations — the Greeks and the Romans, then the Arabs, then the Egyptians — mentioning the harsh existence woman led among some of them and the distinguished positions she enjoyed among others.

She reaches the history of woman in the Middle Ages, and mentions certain exemplary women who had a large share in history in the most varied fields.

The field woman has entered most is the literary field, though no woman has reached the summit in the manner of Dante and Shakespeare. The author goes on to explain the reasons for this, relying on the opinions of the social thinkers who have treated this subject.

The author then gives a historical sketch of the granting to woman of her rights and her equality with man, until she says:

As for those who oppose granting woman her political and civil rights, they rest their case on two things: first, that woman has never in her life created anything great; and second, that woman's position has not stood as a barrier to the emergence of great personalities from among women. We need not mention here the ill and tendentious intent these two objections conceal. But, as many writers say — among them, for example, Condorcet, Stuart Mill, and Stendhal — woman has never been given her chance in any field whatever. For this reason we find today a great number among

them demanding that woman be granted a new charter and a right that has been taken from her.

Simone de Beauvoir says, after that detailed historical account, that this right must be given in full to woman generally, sooner or later; that day is not far off, and the period through which she is passing today is only a period of transition. For this world, which has always belonged to men, is still in their hands...!

The role woman must play in her home and in her work together consumes much of her time and of her capacity to perfect her work and to reach the positions man reaches. Nature has laid upon her the care of the family and of her children in particular, in addition to her outside work, while man attends to nothing but his work. Thus the economic advantage man enjoys, and his social position — his authority as husband, and woman's need of man's help and her dependence on him — all these things drive woman to one important point: appearing in a guise that pleases men. From this it follows that woman comes to know herself and chooses herself not as she exists in her own right, but as man defines her. With this the writer closes her historical chapter, to begin the final chapter, which is on the myths concerning woman.

Man finds in woman bright, shin-ing stars and a dreaming moon; he sees the light of the sun and the shadow of the rocks, and at the same time he finds in her the wild flowers with their thorns and the haughty rose of the gardens. The sea, in the sailor's eyes, is a dangerous woman hard to con-quer, yet he cherishes and loves it in the measure of the effort he spends to possess it. The moun-tain is a proud, rebellious woman, a virgin she-devil, in the eyes of him who climbs the Alps and stakes his life to discover some new place there and take posses-sion of it. And the nearer woman is brought to nature, the more approval she finds in man's eye.

To say that woman is an obscure mystery does not mean that she is mute, but that her voice goes unheard: she is there, but hidden; she exists in spite of untrustworthy appearances. Who is she, then? An angel or a devil, an inspirer or an actress? These questions have no fixed answers — or rather, the answers do not apply to the sex as a whole, for there is an ambiguity attached to this sex, and she herself cannot define herself: she is a sphinx — she is a riddle!

The writer ends her detailed book by saying that the return to the past is no more possible than it is to be hoped for. What we must hope is that man accept, without stipulation or condition, the situ-ation that is still in the course of creation, and that woman alone live this situation without retreating. Then will be fulfilled the wish of Laforgue, who said:

"O young girls! When will you become our brothers, intimate brothers, without any thought of exploitation whatever?! When will we clasp hands in a sincere, innocent handshake? — Then woman will become a human being in the full sense of the word, when her enslavement is finally done away with — that is, when she lives for herself and by herself, and when man grants her her freedom, after having shown, up to this hour, the most hideous kinds of infamy."

Afif Najjar

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