Paula Mota’s Reviews > De Língua Afiada: Mulheres que Fizeram da Opinião Uma Arte > Status Update

Seduction was forged by intellectual discussion. But he [H.G. Wells] refused to touch [Rebecca] West, despite her advances.It was not out of deference to his wife Jane.The Wells's marriage was an open one, his affairs conducted with Jane's full knowledge.But Wells had another mistress on the go at the time and his practical streak seemed to have kicked in.Two mistresses would have been a lot even for a liberated man.

"Their sardonic ways became grounds to ignore these women, to deem them "not serious". Irony, sarcasm, ridicule: these can be tools of outsiders.
(...) There is always intelectual value in not being like everyone else at the table, in this case not being a man, but also not being white, not being upper class, not being from the right school.

They came up in a world that was not eager to hear women's opinion about anything. It can be easy to forget that Dorothy Parker began to publish her caustic verse before women even had the vote. We don't often think about the fact that the 2nd wave feminism kicked up after Susan Sontag had become the icon she was with "Notes on Camp" essay.