Feminism In The Novel Herland

Charlotte Perkins Gilman grew up in a broken home without the presence of her father. Charlotte eventually moved away from her home with her mother and sister. Charlotte tried to keep in contact with her father, but he did not want any part of

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born into poverty, her father abandoned the family as a child which greatly hurt her education. She only had 4 years of formal education. Gilman is remembered today as a poet, an author, a feminist and a social activist.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman grew up in a broken home without the presence of her father. Charlotte eventually moved away from her home with her mother and sister. Charlotte tried to keep in contact with her father, but he did not want any part of the

Gilman came from a long list of fighters for women’s rights, including her aunt Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Having this strong background affected more than her mindset about women’s roles; it also affected her interpersonal relations that she had with her husband and what role she expected to fulfill. From the beginning she struggled with the idea of having to conform to the domestic model for women. Gilman rejected repeated proposals; she stated that “her thoughts, her acts, her whole life would be centered on husband and children. To do the [writing] she needed to do, she must be free.” She finally married Charles Walter Stetson at the age of 24. Not even a year later in March 1885, Charlotte gave birth to her first child, “but feelings of ‘nervous exhaustion’ immediately descended upon her, and she became a ‘mental wreck.’” Now known as Postpartum Depression, this was the affliction that fell upon Gilman. Doctors of the time had little knowledge about the female hormonal system, and all nervous disorders were associated with “hysteria,” a reference used for women with emotional problems.

Gilman was married twice in her life, the first time developing this so called psychoneurosies after the birth of her daughter. "In 1887 Charlotte Perkins Gilman placed herself under the care of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, a

This led to her mother and her having to move from one relative's home to another. Due to being constantly having to relocate, Gilman's education got neglected and she only received four years of schooling. In 1878, she went to school for commercial art at the Rhode Island School of Design. She got married in 1884 to Walter Stetson and they had a daughter. After the birth of their daughter Gilman became severely depressed.

As stated before, Gilman was also a female activist and spokesperson for women. In the amusing novel Herland, it speaks about women and the ideal world where women are free to express their personal and cultural identities living in their own Utopia. The novel focuses on three main characters, Terry Nicholson, Jeff Margrave, and Vandyck Jennings. Nicholson is an ignorant misogynist traveler and is also very wealthy, Jeff is a high-quality doctor who admires the thought of women, and Jennings is a sociologist whose interpretations on women are more practical than the other gentleman. Clearly, each of the men signifies the diverse categories of the male outlooks on women. As to my surprise, Jeff being a doctor, romanticizes women as southern

Gilman was unhappy because she felt as though her marriage and being a mother weighed her down. She only got married because it was expected of women at the time, as one article points out about Gilman. “Charlotte followed tradition and married Stetson on May 2, 1884, though still fearful that her marriage would put an end to her hopes of having a career” (Beekman). In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the wife clearly is not pleased with her marriage, just like Gilman. Several times throughout the story, she makes comments that hint at her unhappiness.

In the imaginary society recounted by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in her novel, Herland, the harmonious all-women community flourishes in what may be arguably characterized as a feminist utopia. The author focused on transforming the traditional notions behind masculine and feminine divisions, that stifled women’s development by robbing them of reaching their full potential. Instead, she combines the two roles into one in her inhabitants which happen to be a society of females to place women as equals to men. The absence of violence, poverty, war, social classes, disease, pollution and most notably of male figures, working in harmony with nature allows for a higher quality of life. To obtain these optimal conditions, Gilman prescribes the world to focalize on cultivating education, prioritizing sustainability, and most important of all, strengthening the bond of community.

Coming to the conclusion “that God made a vile creature when He made woman” (Par. 1) and finding herself “unfortunate because god made [her] inhabit a female body” (Par. 1) instead of a man’s. Christine, an educated woman knew better than to be swayed, was easily convinced that she, like other women, could only contribute so much of herself before corrupting society. Not long after this conviction, she is inspired to create her own world “where no one will reside except all ladies of fame and women worthy of praise” (Par. 2). This utopia enlightened Christine to believe that without woman, man would not exist. Through this epiphany, her ideals transformed from accepting the male perspective of women to be true, into attacking the misogynistic nature of men in general. Stating that men “who take pleasure in vilifying women … act against reason and nature” (Par. 11). The idea of this utopia gives Christine piece of mind in her real life, but cannot be replicated because interactions with men are unavoidable. Unlike the lives of the women in Herland, who live in peace without men to sustain

Soon after her daughter Katherine’s birth, Gilman fell into post-partum depression and seeked professional help. The treatment she was given was not what she needed and it steered her to an even more severe, life threatening depression. Soon after, Gilman and Stetson divorced. Later on in her life, she began to develop an interest in being an activist which led to her absorption of feminism. Gilman became more and more involved with her society and spoke out on behalf of women who suffered from oppression. As Gilman progressed throughout her career and life in 1900, she later married her first cousin George Houghton Gilman, an attorney in New York, and was married for 34 years until his death in 1934 and a year later in 1935, Gilman committed suicide after being diagnosed with inoperable breast

Feminist theory has been around for many years restricting women on how they behave, dress and even what jobs they are ‘allow’ to do. In the short story, “Boys and Girls”, Alice Munro portrays a young girl who is socially and psychologically undermined by her family and the sociality to show her readers how feminist theory took a toll on girls back in 1964 and still happening till this day.

The 18th century was a time where there were very strong gender norms that were strictly followed. But in Eliza Haywood's Fantomina, those gender norms are challenged with the creation of a cunning, and manipulative female protagonist. We are given a text that empowers the main character, Fantomina, throughout the story and shows us a woman's power to exercise their control over men. As a women of a higher class, Fantomina would have been expected to follow a certain code of conduct and uphold a good reputation. However, her ability to deceive Beauplaisir shows her power over him, as well as her skill and intelligence.

One of the key concepts in the book Orlando, by Virginia Woolf, is the idea of gender. In Orlando, gender roles are a concept that is imposed on people by society rather than a biological state. Orlando goes through the experience of finding her gender identity and upon finding her gender identity, another discovery came about. This discovery was that gender roles are, more than anything, a social construct. These traits and lived experiences, we learn, are not something that people discover their own. This is seen in the mock biography of Orlando's life and experience on the gender binary.

In today’s world of 2017, feminism is more relevant and controversial than ever, with a new, controversial president and more and more women in positions of power. However, feminism has changed and evolved since the first writers expressed their wish for more women’s rights, as do all movements. “It is time to … restore to them their lost dignity—and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world,” wrote Mary Wollstonecraft in her Vindication in the Rights of Women (Wollstonecraft 49). Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of the feminist movement wanted women to be able to be a good wife or mother through education, but today’s feminists are educated already- they want more rights for women, such