Title: In Her Place: A Documentary History of Prejudice against Women Author: S.T. Joshi Publisher: Prometheus Books Publish Date: 2006 Pages: 458 Genres:: Gender Studies, Compilation, Non-Fiction, Sociology Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

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S.T. Joshi has some experience compiling essays that are prejudiced in scope; he is also one of the editors of Documents of American Prejudice, a collection of essays that document the intense racism of yesteryear. With In Her Place, Joshi focuses on collecting more than 40 essays dedicated to the inferiority of women and how they are destined for a specific role juxtaposed against men in society. These essays hypothesize female inferiority in many different facets of life from sexuality, as proclaimed in religion & “science,” in marriage, and intellect.

Alas, the articles in In Her Place were lauded over in their time in addition to having been considered revelations in modern science. The documents’ dates range from the mid to late-19 th century to as recently as 20 plus years ago. These theories––which have no scientific or statistical evidence to back up the author’s claims––are thoughts of men and women who apparently made up the intelligentsia and were revered doctors, psychologists and scientists. Their theses proselytize the faults of women in not acknowledging and adhering to their subservient status.

The essays in this compilation are split into a dozen sections that look at women and marriage, women and education, women and religion, the suffragist movement, along with a final section entitled “Backlash––Men Fight Back” which refers to the violence towards women as they attempted to gain their independence.

The Women and Sexuality portion has an essay from one of the most notable and probably well-known intellectuals of our time, Sigmund Freud. Freud considered women to have an infantile stage of sexual satisfaction and deduced that women had to mature from this phase. In his essay, “Female Sexuality” he writes about females suffering from “penis envy.” Freud states that women do not go through the same sexual maturation process that men do. Since the “restraint of the infantile sexuality” is connected to the penis, women therefore envy men for the ability to automatically reach their sexual prime whereas women have three courses they may follow to mature sexually.

The Backlash section gives way to Roy Schenk’s essay, which is not only one of the most recent essays in the bunch (it was published in 1979 and the author continues to write about male oppression in society) it is also the most appalling in content. Dr. Schenk declares that women “tease” men. He compares this taunting to an owner dangling meat in front of a hungry dog. Should the owner yank the food away from the dog the animal becomes enraged. Thus, the reaction to attack has been provoked by the owner, just as women who dangle their sexuality and promises of intimacy in front of men then later yank it away implore men to act violently towards them. Since men are conditioned to think about and want sex continuously and are not as readily able to attain it as women are, it is a harsh move for a woman to retract the thought of sex from a man. He concludes that one of the most disturbing acts of violence against men is treating them as morally inferior.

S.T. Joshi felt it important to combine these essays as a new volume of female deprecation to view how ignorant these writings are after a century or so. What Joshi sought to show is not just “where we have been, intellectually and culturally, as a nation, but also where we might go from there.”

While I believe in free speech in any form, I have to wonder if S.T. Joshi is reinvigorating a voice that has laid somewhat dormant over the past few decades. Should a contemporary medium be given solely to document so narrow and hateful in scope? Obviously the purpose of this book is to educate the reader as to the struggle of women; however, to some, this may serve as supplementary material to an already sexually biased train of thought. And for the audience that this will be a revelation to, if one is already unaware of the intensity of the female’s struggle in society how will In Her Place educate them as to the steps towards success of the women’s suffragist and feminist movements?

I think that a more ideal volume should not only include these fallacy-filled documents, but also contain informative essays that combat them beyond the introduction where Joshi essentially outlines the absurdity of these sexist notions. As a reference In Her Place serves its purpose to reflect a particular mindset, but I think it is important to have a taste of the good, the bad, and the scientifically sound.