Herland Charlotte Perkins Gilman

1
Herland- Charlotte Perkins Gilman
2
Biography (1860-1935)

• She was born Charlotte Anna Perkins, on July 3,
  1860, in Hartford. Her mother was Mary Fitch
  Westcott, and her father was Frederic Beecher
  Perkins. She was the great granddaughter of Lyman
  Beecher, and the great-niece of Henry Ward
  Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
• In 1884, at the age of 24, Gilman married Charles
  W. Stetson, a local artist. Soon after, the birth
  of her first child, Gilman suffered from a near
  nervous breakdown. This experience led her to
  move to California, get a divorce, and leave her
  daughter in the care of her ex-husband. In
  California, Gilman who was poor, turned to
  writing as a way of earning money.
• Gilman wrote poetry, and short stories, among
  them "The Yellow Wallpaper," which later became a
  feminist classic. Among her poetry, and fiction
  short stories, Gilman wrote many non-fiction
  stories. Her best known work is Women and
  Economics,(1898) which argues that sexual and
  maternal roles of women have been over emphasized
  to the detriment of their social and economical
  potential, and that only economic independence
  could bring true freedom.
• Gilman, also co-founded the Women's Peace Party
  in 1915 with activist Jane Addams.
• Gilman learned in 1932 that she had incurable
  breast cancer. As an advocate for the
  right-to-die, Gilman committed suicide on August
  17, 1935 by taking an overdose of chloroform. She
  "chose chloroform over cancer" as her
  autobiography and suicide note stated.

3
Womens Life in the Victorian Period

• Several Key Changes Altered Perceptions of
  Womens Roles
• Shift to consumption of goods rather than
  production
• Shift to a (gendered) wage labor market
• Shift to a nuclear family ideal

4
Victorian Life (Seurat)
5
Birth of the Mass Media

• Clear messages were sent to men and women as to
  what the ideal was through the growth of the mass
  media.
• 1702- First Daily Newspaper
• 1833- Penny Press
• 1837- Telegraph
• 1839 Photography is made more feasible
• 1876 Telephone
• 1879 Light bulb
• 1884 Rolls of Film
• 1894 Motion Pictures
• 1895 Radio

6
Mass Media and Consumption

• The evolving capitalist economy required ever
  expanding markets.
• Consumption is becoming an imperative and a means
  of democratic social advancement.

7
The Happy Family- Consumption

• The decade of the 1850s was one in which women's
  and children's clothing saw a tremendous surge
  towards excess. In women's fashions, skirts
  widened to the point where wire frames had to be
  used to support them each massive skirt sported
  flounces, laces, ribbons, or any variety of other
  often gaudy trimmings. As the dressing of
  children was in a mother's domain, this taste for
  high ornamentation couldn't help but spill over
  into children's clothing.

8
The Cult of True Womanhood (1837-1901)

• Victorian Ideal (1837-1901)
• The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a
  woman judged herself and was judged by her
  husband, her neighbors, and her society could be
  divided into four cardinal virtues - piety,
  purity, submissiveness, and domesticity.

9
Fashions From Godeys Lady Book- 1850
10
Victorian Ladies

• Whether married or single all Victorian women
  were expected to be weak and helpless, a fragile
  delicate flower incapable of making decisions
  beyond selecting the menu and ensuring her many
  children were taught moral values. A gentlewoman
  ensured that the home was a place of comfort for
  her husband and family from the stresses of
  Industrial Britain. 

11
Piety

• Nineteenth-century Americans believed that women
  had a particular propensity for religion. The
  modern young woman of the 1820s and 1830s was
  thought of as a new Eve working with God to bring
  the world out of sin through her suffering,
  through her pure, and passionless love.
• Irreligion in females was considered "the most
  revolting human characteristic." Indeed, it was
  said that "godless, no woman, mother tho she be."

12
Purity

• Female purity was also highly revered. Without
  sexual purity, a woman was no woman, but rather a
  lower form of being, a "fallen woman," unworthy
  of the love of her sex and unfit for their
  company.
• To contemplate the loss of one's purity brought
  tears and hysteria to young women. This made it a
  little difficult, and certainly a bit confusing,
  to contemplate one's marriage, for in popular
  literature, the marriage night was advertised as
  the greatest night in a woman's life, the night
  when she bestowed upon her husband her greatest
  treasure, her virginity. From thence onward, she
  was dependent upon him, an empty vessel without
  legal or emotional existence of her own.

13
Purity Continued

• A woman must guard her treasure with her life.
  Despite any male attempt to assault her, she must
  remain pure and chaste. She must not give in,
  must not give her treasure into the wrong hands.
• The following is advice on how to protect oneself
  and one's treasure given by Mrs. Eliza Farrar,
  author of The Young Woman's Friend "sit not with
  another in a place that is too narrow read not
  out of the same book let not your eagerness to
  see anything induce you to place your head close
  to another person's."

14
GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK- Philadelphia, January 1850

• PURITY. AN ACROSTICBY ROBERT G. ALLISON.
• SING, my muse, in worthy laysA noble theme
  demands thy praise,Radiant with love's brilliant
  rays.As zephyrs mid spring's foliage
  play,Hallowing the influence of mild May,Joy
  and peace around diffusing,O'er each spirit
  lonely musing,So is thy charming minstrelsy

• E'en as the gentle zephyr freePure as the light
  of stars of heaven,Hallowed by power to Truth
  given,And calm as is the breath of evenHope
  beckons to a brighter clime,And Fancy wings her
  flight sublimeLong may thy gifted muse
  rehearseEach grateful theme in glowing verse.

15
Purity as Weapon

• Female purity was also viewed as a weapon, to be
  used by good women to keep men in control of
  their sexual needs and desires, all for their own
  good. A woman's only power was seen as coming
  through her careful use of sexual virtue. Note
  the following quote from a popular ladies
  magazine "the man bears rule over his wife's
  person and conduct. She bears rule over his
  inclinations he governs by law she by
  persuasion...The empire of women is the empire of
  softness, her commands are caresses, her menaces
  are tears."

16
GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK- Philadelphia, February
1850 WOMAN'S POWER -BY FRANK J. WALTERS.

• To catch the last expiring sigh,
• When disappointment sink the soul,
• And soothe the pangs of death?
• And round us troubles throng
• When grief exerts its wild control,
• And sorrow's stormy billows roll,
• Then, then, oh! who is strong?
• Man sinks beneath misfortune's blow
• And hope forsakes his breast
• His boasted powers are all laid low,
• His strength is swallowed up in woe,
• When not by woman blest.
• But she can cheer his drooping heart,
• And rouse his soul again

• OH! tell me not that woman's weak,
• Inconstant, or unkind
• Though flippant writers often speak
• As though dame Nature's master freak
• Was molding woman's mind.
• Around the sufferer's lowly bed,
• When palls the heart of men
• When science falls and hope is fled,
• And helpless lies the dying head,
• Oh! who is constant then!
• Who watches, with a tireless eye,
• The faintly heaving breath?
• Who hovers round, for ever nigh,

17

• Can bid his cankering cares depart, And, by her
  smiling, artless art,
• Can soothe his keenest pain.
• Is woman weak? Go as the sword,
• The weapon of the brave,
• Whose look, whose tone, whose lightest word,
• Though e'en but in a whisper heard,
• Commands it as her slave.
• Go ask man's wild and restless heart
• Who can its passions quell
• Who can withdraw hate's venomed dart,

• Bid malice and revenge depart,
• And virtue in it dwell.
• If woman's weak, then what is strong?
• For all things bow to her
• To her man's powers all belong
• For her the bard attunes his song,
• Her truest worshiper.
• Woman, a fearful power is thine
• The mission to the given
• Requires a strength almost divine,
• A bosom that is virtue's shrine,
• A soul allied to heaven.

18
Taking Things a Bit Far

• American culture of the early nineteenth century
  underwent a purity fetish, such that it touched
  even the language of the day, popular decorating,
  and myths. This is when Americans began to talk
  about limbs for legs (even when referring to the
  legs of chairs) and white meat instead of breast
  meat (in fowl)--this is the language of
  repression. This is when women began to decorate
  the limbs of chairs, pianos, tables, to cover
  them with fabric so that one would not be
  reminded of legs. Proper women were admonished to
  separate male and female authors on bookcases,
  unless, of course, they were married to each
  other. This is also when myth of stork bringing
  babies emerges, and that babies came from cabbage
  patches.

19
Virtue in Popular Culture

• A popular and often reprinted story by Fanny
  Forester told the sad tale of "Lucy Dutton." Lucy
  "with the seal of innocence upon her heart, and a
  rose-leaf upon her cheek," came out of her
  vine-covered cottage and ran into a city slicker.
  "And Lucy was beautiful and trusting, and
  thoughtless... Needs the story be told-
  Nay....Lucy was a child - consider how young, how
  very untaught - oh! Her innocence was no match
  for the sophistry of a gay, city youth! Spring
  came and shame was stamped upon the cottage at
  the foot of the hill."
• The baby died Lucy went mad at the funeral and
  finally died herself. And the moral is?

20
Give Me Purity or Give Me Death

• The Victorians found sexually attractive women
  inherently threatening because they represented a
  powerful force that men could not resist or
  control (except through figurative death).
  Based on Concept of Original Sin (Adam was
  tempted by Eve).
• Women could supposedly wield these terrible
  powers over men through their beauty, so a
  physically frail woman would probably be less
  aggressive, therefore less threatening and the
  preferable type. Reed quotes Katharine M. Rogers,
  from her "Troublesome Helpmate" "Insistence on
  women's weakness and the sweetness of submission
  was a gentle way of keeping them in subjection,
  and in subjection, they were prevented from doing
  harm" (35).

21
Pure as Death

• The most extreme form of this "subjection" of
  women can be found in the figure of the beautiful
  dead woman, which also became a convention in
  Victorian literature. It was common enough to
  become a cliche, which rendered an attractive
  woman innocuous then on two levels literally,
  because as a corpse she is no longer a sexual
  object, and metaphorically "Cliche restricts
  sexual and intellectual arousal, making more
  possible a limited degree of enjoyment but
  erasing the potential for adventure" (Michie 89).
  According to Dinah Birch, "Murdered woman - women
  who become nothing but bodies - feature regularly
  in Victorian literature" (104). Birch calls this
  phenomenon "sanctified beauty." In order to be
  safe, beauty must "become lifeless" (106).

22
Submissiveness

• Men were to be movers, and doers--the actors in
  life. Women were to be passive bystanders,
  submitting to fate, to duty, to God, and to men.
• Women were warned that this was the order of
  things. The Young Ladies Book summarized for the
  unknowledgable, the passive virtues necessary in
  women "It is certain that in whatever situation
  of life a woman is placed from her cradle to her
  grave, a spirit of obedience and submission,
  pliability of temper, and humility of mind are
  required of her.
• Women who sought any type of independence from
  men were considered unstable, scary, even insane.

23
Submissiveness Cont.

• A true woman knew her place, and knew what
  qualities were wanted in her opposite. Said
  George Burnap, in The Sphere and Duties of Woman
  "She feels herself weak and timid. She needs a
  protector. She is in a measure dependent. She
  asks for wisdom, constancy, firmness,
  perseveredness, and she is willing to repay it
  all by the surrender of the full treasure of her
  affection. Women despise in men everything like
  themselves except a tender heart. It is enough
  that she is effeminate and weak she does not
  want another like herself."
• Such views were commonplace. A number of popular
  sayings reiterated "A really sensible woman
  feels her dependence. She does what she can, but
  she is conscious of her inferiority and therefore
  grateful for support." "A woman has a head almost
  too small for intellect but just big enough for
  love." "True feminine genius is ever timid,
  doubtful, and clingingly dependent a perpetual
  childhood."

24
Making Submissive Women

• Just in case she might not get the point, female
  submissiveness and passivity were assured for the
  nineteenth century woman by the clothing she was
  required to wear. Tight corset lacing closed off
  her lungs and pinched her inner organs together.
  Large numbers of under garments and the weight of
  over dresses limited her physical mobility.

25
Understanding Womens Position

• Men and women are made for each other, but their
  mutual dependence is not equal. We could survive
  without them better than they could without us.
  They are dependent on our feelings, on the price
  we put on their merits, on the value we set on
  their attractions and on their virtues. Thus
  womans entire education should be planned in
  relation to men. To please men, to be useful to
  them, to win their love and respect, to raise
  them as children, to care for them as adults,
  counsel and console them, make their lives sweet
  and pleasant. Rousseau, in Emile, 1762

26
And Women Were Assuredly Not Equal- Married
Woman's Property Act 1887

• It was a hypocritical period when relationships
  were quite artificial. Until late in the century
  in 1887 a married woman could own no property.
  Then in 1887 the Married Woman's Property Act
  gave women rights to own her own property.
  Previously her property, frequently inherited
  from her family, belonged to her husband on
  marriage. She became the chattel of the man.
  During this era if a wife separated from her
  husband she had no rights of access to see her
  children. A divorced woman had no chance of
  acceptance in society again. 

27
Domesticity

• Woman's place was in the home. Woman's role was
  to be busy at those morally uplifting tasks aimed
  at maintaining and fulfilling her piety and
  purity.
• Housework was deemed such an uplifting task.
  Godey's Ladies Book argued, "There is more to be
  learned about pouring out tea and coffee than
  most young ladies are willing to believe."
  Needlework and crafts were also approved
  activities which kept women in the home, busy
  about her tasks of wifely duties and childcare,
  keeping the home a cheerful, peaceful place which
  would attract men away from the evils of the
  outer world.

28
GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK Philadelphia, January 1850
29
The Development of Domesticity

• The Cult of Domesticity developed as family lost
  its function as economic unit. Many of links
  between family and community closed off as work
  left home.
• Emergence of market economy and the devaluation
  of women's work.
• Increasingly, then, home became a self-contained
  unit.
• Privacy was a crucial issue for
  nineteenth-century families, and can see this
  concern in the spatial development of suburbs in
  urban areas as families sought single family
  dwellings were they could be even more isolated
  from others.
• Women remained in the home, as a kind of cultural
  hostage.

30
The Important Influence of Domesticity

• It was widely understood that in order to succeed
  in the work world, men had to adopt certain
  values and behaviors materialism, aggression,
  vulgarity, hardness, rationality. But men also
  needed to develop another side to their nature, a
  human side, an anticompetitive side. The home was
  to be the place where they could do this. This
  was where they could express humanistic values,
  aesthetic values, love, honor, loyalty and
  faithfulness. The home was no longer a unit
  valued for its function in the community (or its
  economic productiveness), but rather for its
  isolation from the community and its service to
  its members.

31
The Objectification of Women

• Because the world of work was defined as male,
  the world of the home was defined as female. Part
  of its value lay in its leisurely aspects. Women
  increasingly became a complement to leisure, a
  kind of useless but beautiful object, set off by
  her special setting. The nineteenth-century
  household was cluttered with beautiful, ornate
  objects--elaborate patterns in cloth covering
  walls, ornate furniture, pianos, paintings, and
  brick-abrack. Colors were muted--dark and
  velvety--all to surround, darken, and deepen the
  quiet of the home, and to accentuate the
  softness, submissiveness, and leisure of the
  woman within it, the angel of the house.

32
A Virtuous Woman

• If, however, a woman managed to withstand mans
  assaults on her virtue, she demonstrated her
  superiority and power over him.
• Working class and women of color are
  automatically excluded from such definitions.

33
Exhortations to Women

• Put strongly by Mrs. Sandford "A really sensible
  woman feels her dependence. She does what she
  can, but she is conscious of her inferiority, and
  therefore grateful for support...."
• "True feminine genius," said Grace Greenwood, "is
  ever timid, doubtful, and clingingly dependent a
  perpetual childhood...". Thus, "if your husband
  is abusive, never retort.
• A Young Womans Guide to the Harmonious
  Development of a Christian Character suggested
  that females should "become as little children"
  and avoid "a controversial spirit..." Without
  comment or criticism the writer affirms that "to
  suffer and be silent under suffering seems to be
  the great command a woman has to obey..."

34
The Machinations of Power

• In the nineteenth century, any form of social
  change was tantamount to an attack on womans
  virtue.
• For example, dress reform
• In an issue of The Ladies Wreath a young lady is
  represented in dialogue with her "Professor." The
  girl expresses admiration for the bloomer costume
  - it gives freedom of motion, is healthful, and
  attractive. The Professor sets her straight.
  Trousers, he explains, are "only one of the many
  manifestations of that wild spirit of socialism
  and agrarian radicalism which is at present so
  rife in our land..."

35
Victorian Gentlemen
36
Separate Spheres
37
19th Century Attitudes Toward Bodies

• 1) The human body has only a limited amount of
  energy. It is a closed system. The expenditure of
  energy must, therefore, be closely regulated,
  because one activity would drain energy from
  another.
• 2) The sexual instinct is the most primitive
  instinct. Phrenologists located it at the base of
  the brain.
• 3) Sexual feelings were strong in men, but absent
  in women (certainly in ladies). Actually was
  conflicted opinion about female
  sexuality--passion in women was feared, because
  the demands it would make on men were insatiable
  and like a vampire, it was feared she would drain
  him of his life force). Men were seen in
  continual struggle with their passions. In the
  interests of their own health, they must control
  them--but not expected always to succeed.

38
Scientific Sexism and Separate Spheres

• The characteristics of true manhood and womanhood
  and the separate spheres of male and female
  activity were believed to have a biological
  basis. Female nurturance, intuitive morality,
  domesticity, passivity, and delicacy, and male
  rationality, aggressiveness, independence, and
  toughness were all due to their physical makeup.
• It was assumed that women were different from
  men, both physically and mentally inferior.

39
Gender and Evolution

• Victorian theories of evolution believed that
  these feminine and masculine attributes traced
  back to the lowest forms of life.
• A dichotomy of temperaments defined feminine and
  masculine an anabolic nature which nurtured
  versus a katabolic nature which released energy
  respectively.
• According to the model, since men only concerned
  themselves with fertilization, they could also
  spend energies in other arenas, allowing as
  Spencer says "the male capacity for abstract
  reason... along with an attachment to the idea of
  abstract justice...which was a sign of
  highly-evolved life." On the other hand, woman's
  heavy role in pregnancy, menstruation (considered
  a time of illness, debilitation, and temporary
  insanity), and child-rearing left very little
  energy left for other pursuits. As a result,
  women's position in society came from biological
  evolution -- she had to stay at home in order to
  conserve her energy, while the man could and
  needed to go out and hunt or forage.

40

• It was assumed that women had a lesser amount of
  energy, or "life force" than men. Bodily fluids
  like blood were one measure of "life forces."
  Because the female reproductive system was more
  complex than the male, it was considered
  important for women to channel all their energies
  into reproduction. Therefore, women were
  discouraged from intellectual activity because
  blood was needed for the development of the
  reproductive organs. This was particularly
  important at puberty, when menstruation began and
  physical development hastened.
• Women who diverted their energy would become
  weak, nervous, sterile, or capable only of
  bearing sickly and neurotic children. It was
  estimated that education took away about 20 of a
  woman's vital energy. Pregnant women too must not
  strain their brains, because intellectual
  activity would divert blood from the fetus, and
  result in the physical degeneration of the child,
  or their insanity.

41
Sexual Appetites

• The roles of men and women understood as thus,
  the Victorians still had to deal with the actual
  sexual act, wherein the bipolar model still held.
  
• Earlier on in the century, women were considered
  the weaker, more innocent sex. She had little to
  no sexual appetite, often capturing all the
  sympathy and none of the blame over
  indiscretions. Men represented the fallen,
  sinful, and lustful creatures, wrongfully taking
  advantage of the fragility of women. However,
  this situation switched in the later half of the
  period women had to be held accountable, while
  the men, slaves to their katabolic purposes and
  sexual appetites, could not really be blamed.
  Therefore, women were portrayed either frigid or
  else insatiable. A young lady was only worth as
  much as her chastity and appearance of complete
  innocence, for women were time bombs just waiting
  to be set off. Once led astray, she was the
  fallen woman, and nothing could reconcile that
  till she died.

42
Women's physical inferiority was based on Four
observations

• 1) The visual evidence that women were generally
  physically smaller than men.
• 2) The belief that women had less physical
  stamina than men because they seemed to faint so
  much more (Corsets).
• 3) The knowledge that women menstruated, and
  therefore were believed physically incapacitated
  every month. Menstruation was regarded as a
  periodic illness inflicted upon women. It was
  believed that menstruation could bring on
  temporary insanity in women.
• 4) Women were deemed more delicate and weak than
  men because the female nervous system was finer,
  more irritable, and more prone to
  over-stimulation and fatigue than the male
  nervous system, because of the "unpredictable
  nature" of the female reproductive system.

43
Biology is Destiny

• Physicians saw women as both the product and the
  prisoner of her reproductive system.
• The female uterus and ovaries provided the basis
  for her social role and her behavioral
  characteristics.
• One doctor argued that, "It was as if the
  Almighty, in creating the female sex, had taken
  the uterus and built up a woman around it." The
  current model of disease followed by physicians
  was called "reflex irritation," and assumed that
  any imbalance, any infection, any disorder or
  fatigue would cause a reaction elsewhere in the
  body.
• If one, therefore, had a headache or stomachache,
  or became irritable or faint, it was assumed that
  the problem was with the reproductive system.
  Women were subject to only one disease, then. The
  male reproductive system had no parallel degree
  of control over the male body. Men had headaches
  women had "female complaints."

44
Intellectual Inferiority

• Women were deemed intellectually inferior to men
  as well as physically inferior. This was based on
  two kinds of observations.
• 1) Women had smaller brains than men. Natural
  scientists measured cranial capacity, and brain
  weight and correlated these with intelligence.
• 2) It was also said that the female brain was of
  an inferior and more primitive type than the male
  brain.
• Much of this kind of interpretation came out of a
  pseudo science called phrenology. Phrenology was
  the art of reading the bumps and curves and shape
  of the skull. It was thought that the skull
  provided evidence of personality and character,
  because different parts of the skull housed
  different characteristics. It was clear to
  phrenologists who studied cranium that "woman is
  a constantly growing child, and in the brain, as
  in so many other parts of her body, she conforms
  to her childish type."

45
Coming of Age

• Given attitudes about sexuality, puberty was
  considered critical period for both men and
  women, and therefore the subject of much advice.
  This was the time that men became strong and
  vigorous and women became timid and weak.
• The period was critical for women and the future
  of the human race, because if women did not
  develop some equilibrium in their body, they
  would not only damage themselves, causing untold
  pain, cancer, disease, a difficult menopause, and
  early death, but they would also damage their
  children. For the nineteenth century believed
  that the traits of a child were inherited from
  his or her parents, but the laws of heredity
  differed from those we now recognize. They
  believed that men passed on to their children
  their outer frame, their musculature, and their
  intellect. Women passed on the condition of their
  internal organs, and their emotional stability or
  instability.

46
The Importance of Marriage
47
Social Differences Between Classes of Women

• A wealthy wife was supposed to spend her time
  reading, sewing, receiving guests, going
  visiting, letter writing, seeing to the servants
  and dressing for the part as her husband's social
  representative. 
• For the very poor of Britain things were quite
  different. Fifth hand clothes were usual.
  Servants ate the pickings left over in a rich
  household. The average poor mill worker could
  only afford the very inferior stuff, for example
  rancid bacon, tired vegetables, green potatoes,
  tough old stringy meat, tainted bread, porridge,
  cheese, herrings or kippers. 

48
The Lady and the Maid
49
Working Class Life
50
Dress, Class Distinction, Hierarchy

• By the end of the Queen Victoria's reign there
  were great differences between members of
  society, but the most instantly apparent
  difference was through the garments worn. 
• The Victorian head of household dressed his women
  to show off family wealth. As the 19th century
  progressed dress became more and more lavish
  until clothing dripped with lace and beading as
  the new century dawned. 
• A wealthy woman's day was governed by etiquette
  rules that encumbered her with up to six wardrobe
  changes a day and the needs varied over three
  seasons a year. A lady changed through a wide
  range of clothing as occasion dictated. 
• There was morning and mourning dress, walking
  dress, town dress, visiting dress, receiving
  visitors dress, traveling dress, shooting dress,
  golf dress, seaside dress, races dress, concert
  dress, opera dress, dinner and ball dress. 
• Wealthy women in an open  carriage which enabled
  them to display their clothes and elevated
  position in society.

51
Dress Reform and the New Woman
52
Mens Versus Womens Hats
53
The Times are Changing- The Gibson Girl, Bloomers
and Feminists
54
Dissent
55
Dissent
56
What is Feminism?

• Women demanding their full rights as human
  beings.
• Challenging conceptions of men as a group, and
  women as a group.
• Rebellion against power structures that keep
  women subordinate

57
First Wave Feminism (1860s-1950s)

• Primary focus equality of opportunity in the
  public realm (men and women should be treated in
  the same way)
• Key Concerns
• The right to vote
• Access to education
• Entrance to the professions
• Higher pay and safer working conditions
• Dress reform
• Reproductive rights

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• The key concerns of First Wave Feminists
  included
• Education, employment, the marriage laws, and the
  plight of intelligent middle-class single women.
• They were not primarily concerned with the
  problems of working-class women, First Wave
  Feminists largely responded to specific
  injustices they had themselves experienced.

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Dress Reform

• The very first dress reformers were the female
  political idealists of the French Revolution.
  Their idea of women wearing trousers was echoed
  in America.
• Amelia Bloomer 1818-1894
• In the early Victorian era, the American Mrs.
  Amelia Jenks Bloomer (1818-1894), caused quite a
  stir when she wrote an article for her feminist
  publication 'The Lily'. She tried to promote the
  idea of women abandoning their petticoats for a
  bi-furcated garment later known as the bloomer
  fashion. She suggested that woman would find
  trousers like those worn by Turkish women easier
  to wear than their voluminous heavy skirts.
• The baggy bloomer trousers she liked reached to
  the ankle, were frill cuffed and worn with a
  simple knee length skirt and bodice. She thought
  it a sensible and hygienic option to the boned
  fashion bodices and long weighty skirts of the
  time.

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Rational Dress Society 1881

• The Rational Dress Society formed in 1881 in
  London approved of Mrs. Bloomer's ideas on
  practical fashions. The society was formed by
  Viscountess Harberton and Mrs. King. They drew
  attention to restrictive corsetry and the
  immobility caused by fashions of the day. The
  Rational Dress Society also sold boneless stays
  and promoted fashions that did not deform the
  body.
• The Rational Dress Society thought no woman
  should have to wear more than seven pounds of
  underwear. This may still seem like a great deal
  of clothing to modern women, but the underwear
  was made from bulky gathered cotton or even wool
  flannel and both materials were heavier than
  shorter silk or modern synthetic garments. The
  figure actually halved what had been worn by most
  women in 1850 when ladies often wore up to 14
  pounds weight of undergarments.  

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Key Concerns in Gilman

• Economic Independence
• Dress Reform
• Equitable Distribution of Resources
• Double Standards

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Herland as a Critique of Gender Roles

• Ideals of Both Femininity and Masculinity are
  critiqued as divisive- how?
• Is the sexless perfection of the women is a
  mockery of the purity demanded of women? Or is
  it an assumption she maintains?

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Suggested Discussion Questions

• 1) What was Charlotte Perkins Gilman's incentive
  to write this story? What goals did she hope it
  would accomplish?
• 2) What was going on in the world in 1915 to
  which Gilman was responding?
• 3) Imbedded within Gilman's utopia is her
  critique of the role and place of women in
  Western cultures. What does Gilman see as the lot
  of women in her own society? How does that
  compare to the place of women in Herland?
• 4) According to Gilman, how did men outside of
  Herland gain control over women economically,
  socially, culturally, sexually? How did the women
  of Herland avoid that fate? Do you agree with
  Gilman's assessment of the origins of gender
  restrictions?
• 5) Gilman traces out the history of the
  development of relations between the sexes in
  Western culture and in Herland. What are these
  histories? How and why do they differ?
• 6) Explain how Gilman associates the basic
  concepts of Western culture which she sees as
  problems--such as "nationalism" and
  "patriotism"--with the culture of men. What were
  the counterbalancing positive traits women's
  culture provided, according to Gilman?
• 7) Is a narrative about race visible in Herland?
  What race are the women who live in Herland? Is
  there any racial difference? To what might you
  attribute Gilman's treatment of race?
• 8) In what ways is the "feminist utopia" of
  Herland feminist?