ABSTRACT
The most famous, and the most emphatically feminist, of the early Fabians was George Bernard Shaw. His wife, Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a latecomer to the Fabian fold and to the feminist movement, was, nonetheless, active in both and a true believer in the feminist cause. As a revolutionary dramatist intent on peaceful revolutions, Shaw insisted on rephrasing and expanding the “woman question” to allow for a myriad of diverse answers. The doctrine that Shaw embraced after the turn of the century and which was to infuse his plays to a far greater extent than had socialism, was Vitalism, or Creative Evolution. Shaw had stated that being a socialist did not determine what side of an issue, such as equality for women, one would support. His social life demonstrated that being a male feminist did not determine how sincere that male would be in his relationships with women.
