Man and Anti-Superwoman: The dramatic art of Shaw's "Man and Superman"

Although George Bernard Shaw paints himself as a revolutionary iconoclast in the concluding afterward to his play, "Man and Superman," ultimately his philosophy is anti-feminist. It is reactionary rather than revolutionary in its nature, portraying extraordinary women fulfilling their ultimate philosophical function as the helpers of extraordinary men, rather than achieving astounding mental prowess in their own right.

In Shaw, and his hero Jack Tanner's estimation in "Man and Superman," women are essentially physical creatures. Men are essentially intellectual creatures. Through the mouthpiece of Jack Tanner, Shaw notes, in Chapter 5 of what he titles 'The Revolutionist's Handbook,' "Even a joint stock human stud farm (piously disguised as a reformed Foundling Hospital or something of that sort) might well, under proper inspection and regulation, produce better results than our present reliance on promiscuous marriage." Tanner is loud-mouthed and shocking...
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