Just a note, it is actually so offensive to a woman’s role in society that many (most? I have no idea) scholars think that it was so over-the-top that it must have been meant as a critique of the then-status-quo.
The author outright stated that it was meant as a critique in the 2nd edition, so there’s no need to guess :)
Was that the actual author, or a statement added on their behalf? I thought I recalled reading it as the latter, where it seemed they were just guessing.
Either way it could be a kind of trigger warning for someone who even knowing that wouldn’t want to read the text.
It was the actual author, who got annoyed that people couldn’t recognise satire. Not much different from today, in other words 😂
Hehe. Thanks for sharing that.
In fairness, there are a LOT of kinds of people in the world - e.g. I would have thought that someone advocating to block access to medically necessary abortions would surely have been satire but… nope.
As with any form of message passing, the meaning depends on both the sender and the recipient - I would argue far more so the former, but some extremely selfish people would just as vehemently argue that the latter is all that matters to them.🤷
