Women and Economics

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Author of the well-known short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and other important fiction, Charlotte Perkins [Stetson] Gilman (1860–1935) was an ardent advocate of women's rights. In this classic feminist treatise, Gilman argues that women's dependence on men for their livelihood results in a state of arrested intellectual and emotional development deleterious to both genders. Moreover, she explains, such reliance causes shortcomings in the human species as a whole.
A landmark in feminist theory, Women and Economics was translated into seven languages and hailed as the "Bible" of the women's movement. Although its author's influence declined in the post-World War I period, modern feminists have returned to her still-incisive observations on the role and status of women, establishing Gilman as an important early figure in the struggle for women's economic and social rights. Now Gilman's masterpiece of feminist theory is again available in this modestly priced edition, ready to stimulate and inspire a new generation of women and men engaged in the ongoing fight for gender equality. New Introduction by Sheryl L. Meyering.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Economics, Sociology, Classics, Womens, History

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1898

About the author

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), also known as Charlotte Perkins Stetson, was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform. She was a utopian feminist during a time when her accomplishments were exceptional for women, and she served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. Her best remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", which she wrote after a severe bout of post-partum depression.

She was the daughter of Frederic B. Perkins.

Reviews

[Mansoor · Rating 1 out of 5]

شارلوت پرکینز گیلمن، از بیرق‌داران جنبش حق رای زنان، واقعا رادیکال بوده. او می‌گوید محیط خانه، به طور طبیعی، در کار سرکوب زنان است. تا زمانی که این محیط حرفه‌ای نشود، زنان تمام و کمال به رشد شخصی و سلامت نخواهند رسید. منظورش از حرفه‌ای شدن این است که تمامی وظایف از پرورش و آموزش بچه‌ها گرفته تا رسیدگی به امور خانه به افراد حرفه‌ای سپرده شود تا زنان فرصت کنند در پی علایق شخصی‌شان بروند. با این حال گیلمن و دیگر نام‌های بزرگ جنبش، چه در آمریکا و چه در انگلستان، در جدل‌هایشان خطاب به عموم مردم و سیاستمداران مرد حرفی از این دلخواسته‌های رادیکال به میان نمی‌آوردند

پی‌نوشت: در قدرت علم همین بس که حتی منکران تکامل-ازجمله فمینیست‌هایی مثل گیلمن-هم برای وزن دادن به ادعاهایشان به ریسمان تکامل چنگ می‌زنند

[Callia B.]

The Good: I enjoyed her views on the sexuo-economic relation between men and women, her proposition of re-constituting the "home" to professionalize household duties, her striving towards a society of equal rights to housing, education and income where women are integrated into the social structure without artificial gender roles (she is a utopian feminist after all), and her belief that the economic independence of women will rectify the many ills she sees as consequences of women's dependence on men for their livelihoods (such as over-sexualization of women, poor parenting, lack of friendship between men/women/husband/wife, disconnection of women from "communal society").

The Bad: straight up Social Darwinist and probably eugenicist; lots of emphasis on "reason vs nature" (which is strange because she at least recognizes that structures like gender roles and what we think of women's "nature" are artificial, but still veers towards essentialism); excuses women's oppression as a "necessity in the process of social evolution" and uses this line of thought to basically say "women don't need to be oppressed anymore because of our present economic conditions, so inevitably our liberation is imminent!" which clearly, to her great disbelief, is not the nature of social change.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since this is non-fiction, the book is a little dry but comprehensive of women's financial dependency in the 19th century. It shows that society focuses more on getting women married than helping them grow as individuals and monetizing their work. Perkins Gilman presents solid arguments for more female economic autonomy, but she talks mainly about middle/upper-class women. Also, there is a smidgen of racism in here. It's an important work despite all its flaws and still relevant today.

[Safoora Seyedi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an early critic of marriage, was not the first to ask questions about what marriage meant for women. Her attention to the problem at a time when others were beginning to confront the issue allows us a glimpse into the newly evolving identities of women. Gilman's first book, Women and Economics, published in 1898, addressed the marriage question indirectly. Women and men, she argued, were both essential for economic survival. Dependent on men and confined to the home, women remained helpless to protest mens' decisions. And yet, absent women in the home, men would be unable to work outside it, and families unable to survive. To Gilman, it seemed merely logical that women be entitled to work outside the home for wages. It was ridiculous, she thought, to believe that the function of marriage and motherhood unfit women for an economic role, and especially for economic production.
Gilman was especially insistent that the condition of motherhood not only did not unfit women for positions in the workforce, but actually should be a pathway for women to work. Open jobs to women, she argued, and provide home roles for those men who chose to do them.

[Linda Wain · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so interesting as these essays were written in the early 20th century and based on the role of a woman in the household and her economic value. In so many parts of these essays, I was astounded as to how progressive CPG’s thoughts were, it blew my mind that she penned these thoughts back then. There were so many social observations that I highlighted, I found much of this book enlightening.

As it is a piece of non-fiction, CPG has written from what she knows. Ie. a middle class white woman. I did not expect anything else as these are a set of essays, not a study across all demographics, so I was not disappointed with how the view was centred around that perspective.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense book that was hard to read at times, but many points still relevant today! Well thought out and argued. I was inspired to read it after I was totally taken by The Yellow Wallpaper. Unsurprisingly, though, it really only tackles middle and upper income white women's struggles and doesn't delve too deeply into the experience of low income women or women of color. Makes me think of Virginia Woolf in that respect.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Landmark work by Gilman, really putting into stark perspective Gilman's strident thoughts on women's status in society, and how that very much colored her fiction. I use this book in my Literature by Women course and in my Gender course to allow my students to analyze the (still) unbalanced economic status of women in our own society and in so much of the rest of the world.

[Brian Bigelow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book from the beginnings of the women's liberation movement. Thought it was a quite good read.

[Rosie · Rating 1 out of 5]

SO frustrating.

First thing: I don’t like the introduction by the editor, Carl Degler. It was published in 1966, and that’s very much noticeable in the way he discusses Ms. Gilman. At times, he insults her condescendingly and paternalistically, and his tone often grates on my nerves. The information he provided was useful, but, oh, if only this were published 10 years later, after the second wave had truly begun and changed consciousnesses! I’m certain Carl would have had no choice but to speak differently.

But to get to the work itself:

There are so many things I disagree with Gilman about in this. Her writing style is incisive, vocabularic, and sleek, there is a penetrating, intelligent few lines every several pages or so that are eminently quotable, and many of the smaller points Gilman builds on to support her thesis are dead-on (some of the stuff about race-development versus sex-development, women being over-sexed (though I don’t support all she says about the topic), the natural backwardness of human females being the one ornamenting themselves to be chosen from among by males rather than vice-versa as in other animals), but I am unsympathetic to the larger points of Gilman’s thesis.

The entire thing is so dated. Though Gilman’s utopian idea at the end reminds me of Shulamith’s The Dialectic of Sex.

For one thing, I feel her theory of “male-mothering” (I don’t believe it was called that, but something very similar) is off point and also very much not universally applicable across all classes, races, or cultures/continents.

For another, I disagree with her views on sex; Gilman declares that the only purpose of sex should be procreation, and outside of that purpose, it should be refrained from--not for moral reasons, but practical ones. She refers to the animals to make her point and describes how humans are “over-sexed”. I can agree with that--humans are over-sexed, and it’s even worse today than it was in her time, but I can't with the rest.

Most centrally, though, Gilman believes that the subjection and oppression of women was necessary for “race-development”, and though the women have suffered, well, kudos to them, because we’re all the better for it now! She says that the male used to be inferior to the female, and women’s unequal, slave-like status for hundreds or thousands of years was requisite so that males could develop to become equal to females. Now, I love to see discussion in feminist texts about female superiority as opposed to the opposite, but I just cannot get behind this. Furthermore, she says that now (speaking of her time in the 1800s) it’s changing because it’s necessary that women no longer be in subjection so that the race can further develop, not because it’s injust, cruel, morally wrong, and simply terrible that women be treated as inferior to men, and action is finally being done to change things for justice. …What?? Let me refer to some quotes from the text.

“Right as is the change of attitude in the woman of to-day, she need feel no resentment as to the past, no shame, no sense of wrong. With a full knowledge of the initial superiority for its temporary subversion, she should feel only a deep and tender pride in the long patient ages during which she has waited and suffered, that man might slowly rise to full racial equality with her. She could afford to wait. She could afford to suffer.” (129)

Jesus Christ. I can see why the “Carl” who wrote the introduction to my copy is so enthusiastic at times about Ms. Gilman. The points Ms. Gilman makes must appeal very much to men, considering how considerably anti-feminist they can be. She’s telling women not to feel wronged, not to feel resentful for the horrific injustices they have faced. Instead, they should take “tender pride” in what they have withstood. That is such utter bullshit.

“Since the female had not the tendency to vary which distinguished the male, it was essential that the expansive forces of masculine energy be combined with the preservative and constructive forces of feminine energy. The expansive and variable male energy, struggling under its new necessity for constructive labor, has caused that labor to vary and progress more than it would have done in feminine hands alone. [Ms. Gilman cannot be certain of that. What would civilization be like if it had been built equally in part by women, alongside men, rather than having been stymied and obstructed at every turn? Surely much better.] Out of her wealth of power and patience, liking to work, to give, she toils on forever in the same primitive industries. [Quite misogynistic sounding…And were not women innovators in agriculture and the arts in the beginning of civilization? Ms. Gilman earlier made that point, and now she seems to be contradicting herself…] He, impatient of obstacles, not liking to work, desirous to get rather than to give, splits his task into a thousand specialties, and invents countless ways to lighten his labors. Male energy made to expend itself in performing female functions is what has brought our industries to their present development.” (132-3)

How does she know all these essential qualities of “the female”? I don’t see her providing any proof or evidence. If these qualities do exist in all women, how is Ms. Gilman certain they’re not a result of women’s condition?

“Women can well afford their period of subjection for the sake of a conquered world, a civilized man. [Um, objection! No, thank you. I think we would all rather not “afford” our “period of subjection”. For any sake, though I don’t think that without our “subjection” the world would not be conquered (such a violent concept! Refer to Women and Nature) or “man” be civilized. Tch.] In spite of the agony of the process, the black, long ages of shame and pain and horror, women should remember that they are still here . . . When the centuries of slavery and dishonor, of torture and death, of biting injustice and slow, suffocating repression, seem long to women, let them remember the geologic ages, the millions and millions of years when puny, pygmy, parasitic males struggled for existence, and were used or not, as it happened, like a half-tried patent medicine . . . [Here she provides some examples.] Never once in the history of humanity has any outrage upon women compared with these sweeping sacrifices of helpless males in earlier species . . . For the upbuilding of human life on earth she could afford to have her own held back; and -- closer, tenderer, lovelier service -- for the raising of her fierce sex-mate to a free and gentle brother-hood, for the uplifting of the human soul in her dear son, she could have borne not only this, but more, -- borne it smilingly, ungrudgingly, gladly, for his sake and the world’s.” (134-5)

…Nothing has ever enraged me more than reading those lines. Nothing the male race has gone through solely as a result of their sex even begins to compare to the horrors that have been inflicted on women for being women, and the fact that Ms. Gilman thinks male spiders being killed after being used for reproduction by female spiders is an apt comparison to femicide, rape, foot-binding, sex slavery, or the institution of marriage as it used to be and still is in many places in the world - the buying of a woman as chattel (many times a beating bag) for sex and service from a father to a husband - is simply astounding and insulting. Oh, yes, I feel so sorry for those poor little men. Yes, you’re completely right, Ms. Gilman, nothing women have been through is as awful as what those poor, suffering men experienced! So I will just bear it all with a saintly smile, happily, because men are so wonderful and pathetic, and I’m so proud to bear this burden for their sake. Indeed, I’ll do it gladly.

Not!

Moving on. I can see Ms. Gilman being a little bit manipulative in that section, in her method of appealing to the audience, in this case specifically women… Hearing her call men “puny, pygmy, parasitic males” was a bit like music to my ears--the alliteration is delightful--and it almost makes me want to ignore how nonsensical the entire rest of what she said is. I think that’s intentional. Unfortunately, I cannot do that, though I will keep in mind that lovely phrase for later usage.

Speaking more generally now: Why do I get the feeling that Ms. Gilman might try to explain the slavery of Black people as “necessary” for some other prosaic, self-proclaimed-to-be-justified, and insulting reason? Someone else in the reviews mentioned that Ms. Gilman feels rather eugenicist, and when I read that review, I had just started the book, so I couldn’t see their point, but now that I’m almost halfway through, I can’t help but agree; with all her talk of “race-development” and her utilitarian description of why certain evils were “necessary” to uplift the race, Ms. Gilman does sound remarkably like she believes in eugenics.

Another incidence of writing that makes me slightly uncomfortable with its tone that brings eugenics to mind is the following:

“The Anglo-Saxon blood, that English mixture of which Tennyson sings, -- ‘Saxon and Norman and Dane though we be,’ -- is the most powerful expression of the latest current of fresh racial life from the north” (147).

…Yikes.

I disagree with Ms. Gilman’s view of social evolution. She seems to think it happens precisely when necessary and will then happen without ceasing, no exceptions. I am certainly not of that viewpoint. Social evolution has to be fought and struggled for, and it often occurs long after it’s been due. Women have only recently become emancipated and free in the full sense of the term, and only in certain areas of the world. We deserved that much earlier than we got it. But, this definitely fits with Ms. Gilman’s view that women’s subjection was necessary for “race-evolution”, so, if there’s only one thing I can praise her for, it’s her consistency.

“This struggle has been carried on unflaggingly for fifty years, and fast nears its victorious end” (148).

Wrong. Optimistic of her, but quite incorrect, and it makes me think a bit less of her, seeing as what women did have at that point, compared to the true potential of what we could have, was very small.

“And the clearness and strength of the brain of the woman prove continually the injustice of the clamorous contempt long poured upon what was scornfully called ‘the female mind.’ There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver.” (149)

Indeed! One of the earlier mentioned eminently quotable quotes. At last something that I can agree with again.

“In the fiction of to-day women are continually taking larger place in the action of the story. They are given personal characteristics beyond those of physical beauty. And they are no longer content simply to be: they do.” (150)

Wonderful!

“It should still be remembered it is not the essential relations of wife and mother which are thus injurious, but the industrial conditions born of the economic dependence of the wife and mother, and hitherto supposed to be part of her functions. The change we are making does not in any way militate against the true relations of the family, marriage, and parentage, but only against those sub-relations belonging to an earlier period and now in process of extinction.” (156)

Here, I disagree, again. Economic dependence is a factor that contributes to women’s lowered position, treatment, and lack of freedom, but it is only one of many. It is a symptom of a larger problem. Removing it will only fix the one issue, though it is still, of course, very crucial. Much will be left behind, though (misogyny, the way women are treated in society by men and the society’s institutions, the historical roots of the position of “wife” (one could argue, though I’m not so radical as to agree fully, that it is an institution at its core rotten and unsalvageable), etc. etc.), and seeing as things are still not ideal in the USA in the 2020s, economic independence is not the be-all end-all solution. Anyway, this passage feels very much like a concession, rather brown-nosing, as if to say, “Oh, I’m questioning all these things, but don’t worry, we’ll still be your wives and bear your children, nothing has to truly change, so please don’t get upset”, sort of giving in and defending oneself before an attack has yet been sent. It shows that, though a critical thinker and very important for her times, Ms. Gilman was not so much of a true radical.

“The ability of the individual is not so much the criterion of social progress as that organic relation of individuals which makes the progress of each available to all. Emerson has done more for America than Plato could do for Greece. Indeed, Plato has done more for America than he could do for Greece, because the printing-press and the public school have made thought more freely and easily transmissible. Human progress lies in the perfecting of the social organization, and it is here that the changes of our day are most marked.” (162)

This, I found interesting. It is more general and less to do with men or women specifically, and I find it’s an intriguing and insightful passage that I agree with considerably.

One thing I do like about this book is Ms. Gilman’s focus on economic independence. Now, she focuses a bit too much on it, but I do agree that it’s important, valuable, and imperative for true freedom.

This book reads like a harangue against women - as mothers and as wives. They are the target of Ms. Gilman’s vituperation, and they are treated quite harshly as being responsible for everything wrong with things, men being wholly innocent. She’s blaming everything on them. Everything wrong with humanity is due to women (who, she always adds as an addendum, are messed up because of their economic dependence). She also seems to think being a wife and mother is the end-all be-all of a woman’s existence, her purpose, so to speak. She supports economic independence of women and women in the professions, but she says its unnatural for women to not become mothers.

“[W]oman should stand beside man as the comrade of his soul, not the servant of his body” (237).

Hell, yeah!

“When women stand free as economic agents, they will lift and free their arrested functions, to the much better fulfilment of their duties as wives and mothers and to the vast improvement in health and happiness of the human race” (241).

Here Gilman uses as justification for freedom for women the fact that they’ll be better mothers and wives and the human race will be better. Not…the fact that…women deserve freedom…unalienable rights…No, men’s lives will be better if women are free, and that’s what she appeals to.

“With the homogeneous nature bred of two parents in the same degree of social development, we shall be able to feel simply, to see clearly, to agree with ourselves, to be one person and master of our own lives, instead of wrestling in such hopeless perplexity with what we have called “man’s dual nature.” Marry a civilized man to a primitive savage, and their child will naturally have a dual nature. Marry an Anglo-Saxon to an African or Oriental, and their child has a dual nature. Mary any man of a highly developed nation, full of the specialized activities of his race and their accompanying moral qualities, to the carefully preserved, rudimentary female creature he has so religiously maintained by his side, and you have as a result what we all know so well, — the human soul in its pitiful, well-meaning efforts, its cross-eyed, purblind errors, its baby fits of passion, and its beautiful and ceaseless upward impulse through all this wavering.” (332)

Another stunningly eugenicist-sounding tract…Earlier she made a comment about how hybrids are always morally perverted, or something like that. She does support abolition, it seems, but she’s still…stunningly racist in her language. What does she even mean by “dual-nature”? It’s an ambiguous phrase, but, considering she’s comparing it to humanity’s nature being pitiful and terrible currently, I’m guessing it’s not good. You know, I am the child of an “Anglo-Saxan” and an “Oriental”. So, this is pretty frustrating to read.

“What we need to see is that it is not woman as a sex who is responsible for this mis-mothered world, but the economic position of woman which makes her what she is. If men were so placed, it would have the same effect. Not the sex-relation, but the economic relation of the sexes, has so tangled the skein of human life.” (333)

Gilman is sure putting a lot of stock into economics here. Honestly, I think she’s wrong. As I said above.

“Yet here, as in the other evil results of the sexuo-economic relation, we can see the accompanying good that made the condition necessary in its time;” (339)

Oh. My. God. “The accompanying good” my ass! “Necessary” my ass!

In short, this book became increasingly frustrating to read through the further I read. Gilman is radical for her times, but I simply recoil from most of her arguments!

[Ghala Anas · Rating 4 out of 5]

مقدمة ترجمتي للاقتصاد والمرأة – شارلوت جيلمان

لقد وجدت أنه من المؤسف للغاية ألّا تحتوي المكتبة العربية إلا على مؤلًّفٍ واحدٍ من مؤلفات شارلوت جيلمان: ورق الحائط الأصفر، ذاك أن الكاتبة امتازت بعقل سابق لعصرها بعدة مراحل، أما ونحن الآن في عصر تسهل فيه ترجمات الأعمال والاطلاع عليها، فلم يبقَ لدينا أي مبرر لغض الطرف عن منابع المعرفة أينما وجدت، والاطلاع على الفلسفات واتخاذ المواقف منها.
يقدّم هذا الكتاب لقارئه أصول مشكلة استعباد المرأة وسلبها حقوقَها، ويمر بهذه المشكلة عبر الأزمنة بتطوراتها واختلاف أشكالها حتى الزمن الذي عاشت فيه الكاتبة، نهاية القرن التاسع عشر وبداية القرن العشرين، ولا يتوقع القارئ خطاباً مندفعاً فارغاً من المحتوى والأهمية، كبعض الخطابات النسوية التي نسمعها اليوم، والتي لم تستطع وصف المشكلة وصفاً تاماً ولا الإحاطة بظروفها وخصائصها وجذورها، ألا نرى الجميع ينتقد الثمار السامة، ولا يطّلعون إلى جذور الشجرة نفسها؟
أما هذا الكتاب، فهو بعيد كل البعد عن السطحية والانفعالية، وسيرى الكاتب نفسَه يخوض في علوم الاجتماع والأحياء والفلسفات بين صفحات الكتاب، وينتقل مع الكاتبة عبر جذور المشكلة من هنا إلى هناك بسلاسة وفهمِ وإدراك عميق، ليجد نفسه بعد نهاية كل فصل وقد تعلم شيئاً جديداً عن ظروف المشكلة الكبيرة.
ولم تقتصر الكاتبة على بيان عمق المشكلة وظروفها، بل قدمت اقتراحات للإصلاح، بعضها نراه اليوم متحققاً والبعض الآخر نتمنى أن يكون ضمن خططنا المستقبلية، أما عند الانتهاء من الكتاب، فأول ما سيبدر لذهن القارئ هو: كيف كنا معرضين طوال هذا الوقت عن ظروف المشكلة وأصولها؟ كيف ننادي بالإصلاح مِنْ دون معرفة الجوانب الفاسدة؟
سيتبين له عندها عمق المشكلة والظروف التي أوجبتها، وسيعلم في حينها أنه بمجرد معالجة الظروف الداعمة لها، وتطبيق الاقتراحات التي أوصت الكاتبة بها، سنرى المشكلة في تلاشٍ مستمر حتى تختفي.
أما وصيتي للقارئ أثناء قراءة الكتاب: دع المعرفة تقودك إلى حياة هانئة، فالجحيم الذي نعيشه اليوم يتطلّبُ منا على الأقل عقولاً تدرك خَلاصَها بالعلم والمعرفة.
غلاء سمير أنس/17 ديسمبر2020

[Michael]

At the time of its publication, the London Chronicle had this to say about Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Women and Economics: "Since John Stuart Mill's essay there has been no book dealing with the whole position of women to approach it in originality of conception and brilliancy of exposition."

Published in 1898, this is a public domain book, although not transcribed by Project Gutenberg as yet. I found copies here:

University of Pennsylvania "A Celebration of Women Writers" Project - entire text on one webpage; it appears to be intact but I've only proofread a small portion

University of California Press E-Books Collection - entire text divided into framed web pages by chapter; it appears to be intact but I've only proofread a small portion

American Libraries Internet Archive - many ebook formats of a Google scan of the book that appears to be converted to text by software; it contains numerous artifacts and errors making it sometimes difficult to read

Review to come, when I read it, probably 2016...

[Kourtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

(maybe more like 3.5 stars. I'm undecided).
Very well-written, as I expected from the author of "The Yellow Wallpaper".
There were many points that I had to highlight because they were so well said.
There were other parts that were a definite miss for someone with modern sensibilities, although I don't know how harshly I can criticize a woman born in 1860. The discussions of "virtuous vs vicious woman" (condemning women who have sex outside of marriage) or any mention of other races (when they were even considered) did NOT age well, as could be expected. Other sections just did not interest me and seemed to drag.
At its core, though, her discussions on why the role of women should change in society were very interesting to read and her take on the "male of the species" was often so harsh that I'm amazed she got away with it in the year 1898.
It was my first time reading from this era of the women's movement and I can see why this wound up being an important work, even if there are some ideals that do not hold up today.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

With such a dry title, I didn't expect such a witty -- even humorous, at times -- text. Gilman's tracing of the effects of women's economic dependence on men is eye-opening, even to a twenty-first century reader. This text serves as a reminder of the importance of female autonomy to a healthy society.

[Jessica Klimesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book should be required reading for every teen-aged girl (although it would likely be over their heads). While a little "over the top," the viewpoint is necessary and pertinent.

[Sarah Brewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a good time

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, this was something of a firework right from the start. Loved the writing style of Charlotte, not to mention her way of doing an argument. Poignant, direct, challenging but oh so mistaken and wrong, again and again. Lot's of quotables tho.

After the buildup of the premise, the writing slows down a bit and it's almost like she forgets the "evil man"(yes, she kind of equates them, because the sex-relation is evil and it is a male construct), and goes into the field of discussing women and family and home. To get there tho, she has built up an idea from the olden times when men were brutes and created a scene sexual relationship between the genders. She expands upon Darwin and tries to implement the idea of there being two evolutions, and she writes that "Natural selection develop race. Sexual selection develops sex". You make what you want of that one - it introduces more problems than she is able to explain. This is important for her, but a big flaw by my opinion - because in her eyes the shift towards the economic man-made things worse(because it was a development from natural selection toward sexual selection - toward an oversexed society) while if you go a few hundred years back from her time would prove that the economic modern man was making things better for both sexes. The way from there has shown that we have developed a society with much more independent women. But it was not an equal evolution, it was the female that became over-sexed, and the man was the source, although she is unable to tell us how exactly this ingenious plotting was done.

I would blame some parts of her arguments to the time, so in some sense, she is excused. Many of her ideas is a development of what feminism was to become. She was not totally socialist because socialist was a man dominated idea - but she was wholly class driven, so in root ideology, it seems to me that she was in Marx territory. At the same time, it was a useful critique of the times, because there was still a long way for the equal rights we have today, so not everything was unfounded.

Still, a definitely interesting read - that I may return back to revisit the arguments or just to laugh at them.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Largely great, sans the parts where she lays the blame of all society’s ills on the current state of motherhood!

[Cassy]

Read for seminar

[Giulia]

This is probably too outdated for me to find it agreeable, but I was still expecting more given it's CPG.

[Fatima Javed]

i think i will like it

[Mrlexiphanic · Rating 3 out of 5]

lil 2 racist

[Novia Anggraeni Iskandar · Rating 3 out of 5]

It did takes time for me to finish this book. Somehow I thought that I read chains of rants made of series of self-opinion and arguments. Nevertheless, it might have representated the condition women might face in the age of this book was written. Therefore my point of view based on status quo would not much relatable.

Despite of that, Ms. Gilman shared her thoughtful insight regarding what man and woman relationship should be. In chapter 9 she wrote her thought in the form of this sentence:
"And woman should stand beside man as the comrade of his soul, not the servant of his body."
Instead of writing "behind" she wrote "beside". Yet, she also mentioned that woman roles must be a friend of man's soul not an object to satisfy the carnal needs of man. And I couldn't agree more on this.

[Layne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just when I was really over Charlotte Perkins Gilman, I started reading this for my diss., and I am really excited by it! CPG argue that women are encouraged by society to be consumers rather than producers, particularly in the marriage-centered 19th century middle class culture she was a part of, and that this focus leads to a damaging individualism and lack of artistic and social progress. It's logical and easy to follow, totally worth reading.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Revolutionary, and worth a read for a look at early feminism. A terrible shame that, like her other work, it's flawed by overt racism.

[Jaymi Boswell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was assigned to do a report on Gilman in a college History class. I was sure I would hate it. I ended up liking her quick thinking on what needed to be done for woman's sake.

[Luanne Castle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for an assignment, and it had some interesting passages, but it was a little dry and out of date for my taste.

[Subashini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting in many ways and, (BUT) like all white feminists of a certain era, the interesting stuff comes with great lashings of racism and its faithful companion, eugenics.

[Laura]

cited in women's realities, women's choices