Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Radical, feminist, theorist

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One of the great achievements of the women's movement has been its commitment to restoring women's history. Women are gaining a new pride in their heritage by the rediscovery of great female thinkers, writers, artists, and activists silenced by patriarchal capitalist history.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman-enormously famous in her own time yet virtually unknown in ours—was both a radical and a feminist at the turn of the century. Though this short article cannot attempt to do justice to her politics, it is meant to introduce Gilman and encourage others to seek out and enjoy her work.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) referred to herself as a "humanist" rather than as a "feminist."

Her works analyze the past from her particular "humanist-socialist" perspective. Her interest in female suffrage and her connection with the organized suffrage movement were peripheral. She spoke extensively, however, for women's groups around the United States and was a prolific writer on subjects relating to the emancipation of women.

Charlotte Perkins was born on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Conn. Deserted soon afterwards by her father, Charlotte's family lived in poverty. Charlotte became self-supporting at an early age by designing greetings cards. She worked later as an art teacher and a governess. The lessons of her bitter childhood and early forced independence gave her an insight which became the basis for her feminist theory.

The tragedy of her mother's fate, to be a pariah Victorian society, did not escape Charlotte:

"When the woman left with no man to 'support' her, tries to meet her own economic necessities, the difficulties which confront her prove conclusively what the general economic status of women is." (Women and Economics.)

Gilman always maintained that no woman could ever be free without first gaining economic independence.

The personal is political Events in her personal life once again fueled her feminism when social pressure and personal confusion forced her to marry. The combined isolation, sexual repression, and dependence inherent in her role as a Victorian wife led Gilman to a nervous breakdown.

She consulted S. Weir Mitchell, a well-known neurologist and "specialist" in women's nervous disorders. His famous "Rest Cure" evidently prescribed to thousands of other women, forbade her to write or paint and limited her intellectual activity to two hours a day.

Rather than cure her, Mitchell's expert advice drove Gilman even closer to insanity. She ran away to California and—in order to survive-permanently separated from her husband. Gilman managed to support herself and her daughter by running a boarding house while launching a career as a writer and orator.

In 1892 her largely autobiographical work, "The Yellow Wallpaper" was published. A terrifying account of a young woman driven insane by a well-meaning husband and Dr. Mitchell's "cure" it is a powerful feminist indictment of the patriarchal medical establishment, marital power relations, and the labeling of rebellious women as "mad."

• Economic dependence Her next major work, "Women and Economics, appeared in 1898 and established her reputation. It is a comprehensive political study of the history, sociology, and economics of women in Western society. Translated into seven languages, the book won her international notoriety.

She believed strongly that women were crippled the home as the primary source of women's inequality, she never challenged the basic institution of monogamous, heterosexual marriage and the nuclear family.

In her theory women's oppression began when men first expropriated the surplus of women's labor in agriculture. This she believed to be the first form of subjection and the basis for all ensuing exploitation.

Thus women were dehumanized and prevented from realization of their human potential. Oppression prevented women from fully developing qualities such as courage, strength, and creativity that society viewed as "masculine" and positive. In "Women and Economics, she illustrated this point by making an analogy to the way people treat cows:

"The wild cow is a female. She has healthy calves and milk enough for them. And that is all the femininity she needs. Otherwise she is bovine rather than feminine. She is a light, strong, swift, sinewy creature, able to run, jump and fight, if necessary. We, for economic uses, have artificially developed the cow's capacity for producing milk. She has become a walking milk-machine, bred and tended to that express end, her value measured in quarts."

A healthy society requires female autonomy Gilman always stressed the shared humanity of women and men rather than their differences brought about by social conditioning. This was contrary to many feminists of her time who believed women superior to men.

But it was her opinion that men's personalities were distorted by habits of dominance and power. A healthy society would • therefore require temale autonomy brought about through women's collective political action.

Gilman believed in the socialization of private property and collective organization and social relations. She belonged to the Socialist Party. But her pacifist rejection of violence and faith in the collective abilities of women as an alternative led her to reject the Marxist view of class struggle. Her ideology was closest to that of the English Fabian socialists.

Determined to present socialism as legitimate, alluring, and practical, Gilman produced a monthly 32-page magazine, The Forerunner. The magazine's main concern was integrating socialism and feminism. Gilman wrote every line herself, publishing her views on topics from venereal disease to public transportation.

Gilman's novel "Herland"

The Forerunner. It illustrated female, egalitarian society. It is If you like this paper, you'll like the organization of the same name—Socialist Action.

This paper shows you who we are and what we do. We are active in the antiwar movement and in the unions. We are fighters against racism and for sexual equality. We are part of the struggle against capitalist injustice wherever it occurs.

With abortion rights under attack by the government and its two ruling parties, dissatisfaction and anger are building up among millions of women in this country.

Reflecting the widespread sentiment, Eleanor Smeal, the newly elected president of NOW, has vowed to organize a national demonstration next spring for the ERA and to defend abortion rights. Independent mass action in the streets, which Smeal has promised, will mobilize millions of women in defense of their own interests.

Socialist Action will continue to cover the issues confronting the women's movement and will seek to build the mass actions for abortion rights and reproductive freedom.

If you like this paper, we hope you'll subscribe and make a financial contribution to help us continue publishing it. We are counting on your help. was serialized in the her vision of an allgenerally accepted as Name.

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Telephone Socialist the first feminist utopian novel.

In the Herland utopia childrearing is socialized, as are housecleaning, food preparation, and other domestic tasks. Persuasion and consensus maintain social order. There is no fear of male sexual violence. Motherhood is revered. Male sexuality is non-existent-women reproduce parthenogenically when they desire motherhood.

"Women's work" no longer exists; all work is women's work. There are no economic classes; women are simultaneously individuals and part of a collective.

Feminist theory for social change Gilman was a great feminist. She became an independent, strong, and creative woman during an extremely misogynist era. She drew from her perVOTES IN 1916

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by their economic dependence on men (as fathers, brothers, and husbands). But though she recognized