first edition
1919 · London
by Baird, Mona
London: Health Promotion, Ltd, 1919. First edition. Very Good +. Octavo. 215, [9, ads] pp. Publisher's gray paper wrappers. Some toning and foxing to wrappers and first few leaves, but clean overall. A Very Good+ copy of a scarce and radical work on women's health that advocates for women's economic equality and the right to vote.
Written under the pseudonym of "Mona Baird," Womanhood presents both a frank discussion of women's health and relationships and the author's perspective on women's role in society. Baird supported suffrage, criticized eugenics, and identified discrimination as a root cause of women's poverty and suffering. Her radical perspectives led Dr. Mary Scharlieb (1845 - 1930), a pioneering gynecologist and one of the most prominent medical women of her day, to issue a warning in her preface: "I cannot see eye to eye with 'Mona Baird' with regard to the paramount necessity of full self-realisation. She says that she does not advocate 'free love,' but she appears to go perilously near to advocating a condition of things that seems to be subversive of social walfare and of individual purity" (p. 7).
Scharlieb's criticism of Baird may have stemmed, in part, from Baird's view on eugenics (which Scharlieb supported). Baird was somewhat sympathetic to the notion of eugenics, but she firmly criticized the infringements on personal liberty mandated by eugenics policies. Baird wrote, "The way to deal with poverty and disease is not to limit births or to restrict human beings in their free choice of partners for life. They are human, after all" (p. 165). Instead, Baird argued that poverty could be alleviated with structural changes like state welfare and infrastructure improvements in impoverished areas. She also identified misogyny as a driving force of women's suffering and described women's inequality as "due to economic causes over which in the past she has had no control. For the rest, what is usually called man’s selfishness, but what I prefer to call man’s ignorance and low ideal of womanhood, are other factors which are responsible for the unfortunately low status of woman in social life" (p. 213). In Baird's view, "there would be no need either to limit the number of children born, or the type of man and woman who should become parents" if women had equal status in society (p. 164).
In the final chapter, Baird also made a firm statement in support of women's suffrage and the role of women in social reform. Suffragists had just garnered a victory with the Representation of the People Act of 1918, which allowed property-owning women over the age of thirty to vote. Baird wrote, "While rejoicing over what has been already done towards raising the political status of woman, let us never forget, however, that the vote is not an end in itself. It is a tool which an intelligent and educated womanhood will be able to use with growing power. With its aid women will be able to help the helpless. For the tool which enfranchisement puts into their hands is not an axe with which to cut down existing institutions, or even a sword for defence. It is more. It is a spade which will dig deep into the hard ground of convention and ignorance, expose to the air what is rotting or diseased in our social growths, and let the rain of pity and the sun of love do their work in making the world bring forth health-giving and life-sustaining ideas" (p. 212).
We could not locate much information about Mona Baird, which seems to have been a pseudonym. Dr. Mary Scharlieb, on the other hand, was a prominent gynecologist and professor who was both the first woman educated in medicine at the Madras Medical College and the first woman to earn both the M.D. and M.S. (Master of Surgery) in Britain. She operated a private practice in London for over forty years and published several books on women's health and pediatrics. Very Good +. (Inventory #: 7286)
Written under the pseudonym of "Mona Baird," Womanhood presents both a frank discussion of women's health and relationships and the author's perspective on women's role in society. Baird supported suffrage, criticized eugenics, and identified discrimination as a root cause of women's poverty and suffering. Her radical perspectives led Dr. Mary Scharlieb (1845 - 1930), a pioneering gynecologist and one of the most prominent medical women of her day, to issue a warning in her preface: "I cannot see eye to eye with 'Mona Baird' with regard to the paramount necessity of full self-realisation. She says that she does not advocate 'free love,' but she appears to go perilously near to advocating a condition of things that seems to be subversive of social walfare and of individual purity" (p. 7).
Scharlieb's criticism of Baird may have stemmed, in part, from Baird's view on eugenics (which Scharlieb supported). Baird was somewhat sympathetic to the notion of eugenics, but she firmly criticized the infringements on personal liberty mandated by eugenics policies. Baird wrote, "The way to deal with poverty and disease is not to limit births or to restrict human beings in their free choice of partners for life. They are human, after all" (p. 165). Instead, Baird argued that poverty could be alleviated with structural changes like state welfare and infrastructure improvements in impoverished areas. She also identified misogyny as a driving force of women's suffering and described women's inequality as "due to economic causes over which in the past she has had no control. For the rest, what is usually called man’s selfishness, but what I prefer to call man’s ignorance and low ideal of womanhood, are other factors which are responsible for the unfortunately low status of woman in social life" (p. 213). In Baird's view, "there would be no need either to limit the number of children born, or the type of man and woman who should become parents" if women had equal status in society (p. 164).
In the final chapter, Baird also made a firm statement in support of women's suffrage and the role of women in social reform. Suffragists had just garnered a victory with the Representation of the People Act of 1918, which allowed property-owning women over the age of thirty to vote. Baird wrote, "While rejoicing over what has been already done towards raising the political status of woman, let us never forget, however, that the vote is not an end in itself. It is a tool which an intelligent and educated womanhood will be able to use with growing power. With its aid women will be able to help the helpless. For the tool which enfranchisement puts into their hands is not an axe with which to cut down existing institutions, or even a sword for defence. It is more. It is a spade which will dig deep into the hard ground of convention and ignorance, expose to the air what is rotting or diseased in our social growths, and let the rain of pity and the sun of love do their work in making the world bring forth health-giving and life-sustaining ideas" (p. 212).
We could not locate much information about Mona Baird, which seems to have been a pseudonym. Dr. Mary Scharlieb, on the other hand, was a prominent gynecologist and professor who was both the first woman educated in medicine at the Madras Medical College and the first woman to earn both the M.D. and M.S. (Master of Surgery) in Britain. She operated a private practice in London for over forty years and published several books on women's health and pediatrics. Very Good +. (Inventory #: 7286)
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