This book examines the interconnections of gender theory and lived gender relationships of some of the key social theorists of the classical period (1789 - 1920): Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Enfantin, Comte, Marx, Engels, Mill, Nietzsche, Durkheim and Weber. By recounting the confrontations of these theorists with the spectre of the new woman, and women's emancipation, it opens up new questions for the way we percaive the questions of 'the new man' today.