Adam's Rib

Originally published in 1948 this classic book by the feminist critic and poet Ruth Herschberger was one of an early wave of mid-century texts (along with Simon de Beauvoir’s Second Sex) that reframed the supposedly neutral world of science into a minefield of male-centered bias. Herschberger advocated for the need to correct a vision of science emerging only from the male point of view which reinforced the idea that females of all species represented a deviation from the universal (male) norm. The book analyses the anti-feminine sex-role stereotypes, both implicit and explicit.

Ruth Herschberger (1917–2014) was a well-known American poet and feminist. She was the recipient of the Hopwood Award for Poetry, the Midland Authors Award for Poetry and the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize.