ABSTRACT
The so-called superior sex sends out a barrage of flattery extoling motherhood, wifehood, beauty, sweetness, innocence, and declaring that no work is as sacred as the homemaker’s, but strangely enough a man with these virtues or aptitudes is regarded as “feminine,” an opprobrious term when applied to him. An examination of the modern novel reveals how universally women are tacitly thought to be the inferior sex. Even the most successful and dominant women have moments of weakness in the novels when they think themselves inferior because they are only women. The novel, that mirror of life, written from the training and experience of human beings, is cluttered with sex inferiority. Men and women writers speaking through male and female characters show a definite concept of male superiority. The idea must be a handicap to women, a retarding force in attaining equality with men.
