The Truth About Woman

"This book is a remarkable contribution. It should appeal deeply to both men and women interested in understanding the present awakening of women. It is many sided and deeply suggestive and should be widely read….Many so-called feminist books are extremely trying in that they tend, in the fervor of their propaganda, to be too utterly feminine and fail therein to be human. C. Gasquoine Hartley (Mrs. Walter M. Gallichan), in 'The Truth About Woman,' never lacks fervor and enthusiasm, but combines with these qualities an unusual sense of proportion…. This thoughtful book is written in a direct and simple style which gives the reader the constant feeling of entering into a personal talk with the author, sharing the conclusions of a matured, poised individual who has lived broadly and understandingly among divers classes in many lands. Mrs. Gallichan has hitherto written chiefly on Spain and Spanish art; perhaps this explains why she touches all phases of her new subject with a keener sense of the emotional and human values than do many feminist writers who have devoted themselves exclusively to the economic and sociological aspects of life. She seems never to lose sight of the fact that, after all, in the most difficult of all arts - that which deals in the problems of human adjustments - many of the equations must be solved through individual education and development." -The Bookman

"An able, suggestive and often original presentation of the viewpoint of the advanced woman in which the author draws on the facts of biology, anthropology and history, gleaned from a wide research, for the main substance and foundation of her argument. She advocates greater freedom for women on the ground that it will subserve the interests of the race, not as a step toward a higher individual culture as does Mayreder, regarding an independent and enlightened motherhood as the end of freedom." -Booklist

"Mrs. Gallichan differs from most writers in this field in showing no disposition to harass the brute male. Men may differ with her - in self-defense they must - but they will find her genial, reasonable, and possessed of a large outlook upon life. In her view men are not less moral than women, though less religious; and they are not grosser in matters of sex, but only more downright - a rare admission for which men should be grateful…And, after all, women are superior. By a copious use of the material of biology and anthropology, mostly at second hand, it is shown that life is 'essentially female' and that the male is (in the words of the late Lester F. Ward) 'an afterthought of Nature,' created merely for purposes of fertilization by an asexual female (monstrum horrendum!); and further, that the earliest state of society was matriarchal." -The Nation

"A frank and comprehensive statement of conditions as she sees them….In her plan for establishing woman's claim to freedom, the author divides her book into three parts. In the first and second she proves, biologically and historically, that woman has not been the inferior, dependent being she is so often called, but that her freedom is deep rooted in the past. In the third she deals with present-day aspects of the woman's problem, 'the differences between woman and man, and the relation of the sexes.' Mrs. Gallichan believes that when woman's right of selection is given back to her to exercise without restraint, we shall see more beautiful mating. 'We are only awakening to the terrible evils of these powerful economic restraints which now limit woman's range of choice and drive her to revolt.' Her conclusions are loyal and enthusiastic: 'The manifestations of the present are only the superficial evidence of a deep undercurrent of awakening. Surely from out of the wreckage and passion a new woman will arise.'" -The Literary Digest