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Role Of Fatherhood In Herland

Decent Essays

Mothers and fathers play important roles in the growth of children’s life, with different approaches but a same goal: for the good of the children. In various publications, fatherhood complements motherhood: one represents the power that provides protections to the families while the other gives the most detailed care toward their children. However, what happens if only mothers present in the households? To the extreme, in Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman even depicts a utopia consisted of only female, a world operated solely on the love of mothers. This love contributes to the healthy growth and the continuation of their future generations in the absence of the fatherhood. Thorough and comprehensive, the mothers’ love delicately fruits the …show more content…

Herland has its unique origin that all present residents descend from only one mother, who profoundly founded and continued a new race. Ever since, the daughters afterward “[inherit] all that the devoted care of that declining band of original ones could leave them” and actively take on the role to dedicate their love to the future generations (Gilman). They respect mother-love and “raise it to the highest power” because for them, maternal love founds, preserves, and empowers their own race (Gilman). Not only fulfilling the current responsibilities of raising and caring for their children, mothers contribute to the continuation of the entire human generations, extending beyond the present. For black women, they take on the responsibility to advance the future of the entire community or even their population. Rooted from the origin of community mothermothers, their “feelings of responsibility for nurturing the children in their own extended family networks have stimulated a more generalized ethic of care where Black women fell accountable to all the Black community’s children” and also those from the future generations (Collins, 49). Passing onto their daughters’ this generous and extensive love, mothers perpetuate the advancement of the family and the community. Thus the human race progresses, driven by this eternal cycle of …show more content…

Ever lasting, this love from mother builds up and promotes the development of the entire generations, becoming the source that empowers the population and enlightens the civilization.
Patricia Hill Collins illustrates the maternal love through the African-American communities, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman uplift such love to the holy level in her female utopia, demonstrating the power of motherhood both socially and spiritually. However, descriptions related to men and fatherhood were rarely shown. What will the world only consisted of men look like? How will fatherhood operate and influence the development through that

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