Books, Arts & Manners: Chimp Sexism

Girls & Boys: The Limits of Nonsexist Childrearing, by Sara Bonnett Stein Scribner’s, 208 pp., $13.95 Sara Bonnett Stein loves what she observes, she observes with imagination, and she writes with grace. The result is a book as warm as it is intelligent: Girls & Boys: The Limits of Nonsexist Childrearing.

The title may suggest at least a residue of feminist ideology, and I confess to squirming at the phrase “chimpanzee sexism” in an early chapter. Chesterton defined a feminist as “one who dislikes the chief feminine characteristics,” but that doesn’t fit Mrs. Stein at all. She clearly likes and appreciates both sexes and their distinctive traits. Far from casting a censorious eye on the chimps, she looks to their behavior for intimations about ourselves; as Richard Weaver might put it, she cherishes some aspects of the world as it is, and is therefore spiritually qualified to suggest reforms.

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Joseph Sobran

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Girls & Boys: The Limits of Nonsexist Childrearing, by Sara Bonnett Stein Scribner’s, 208 pp., $13.95 Sara Bonnett Stein loves what she observes, she observes with imagination, and she writes with grace. The result is a book as warm as it is intelligent: Girls & Boys: The Limits of Nonsexist Childrearing.

The title may suggest at least a residue of feminist ideology, and I confess to squirming at the phrase “chimpanzee sexism” in an early chapter. Chesterton defined a feminist as “one who dislikes the chief feminine characteristics,” but that doesn’t fit Mrs. Stein at all. She clearly likes and appreciates both sexes and their distinctive traits. Far from casting a censorious eye on the chimps, she looks to their behavior for intimations about ourselves; as Richard Weaver might put it, she cherishes some aspects of the world as it is, and is therefore spiritually qualified to suggest reforms.