Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was published in 1915. It tells the story of an expedition to a remote, mountainous area that stumbles across a society that is utopian and entirely comprised of women.

The expedition is comprised of three men. Their personalities and initial beliefs concerning gender are important in terms of the book’s themes. Terry O. Nicholson is a womanizer and a sexist who views women as children. Jeff Margrave idolizes women and can be described as chivalrous.  Vandyck "Van" Jennings is the story’s first person narrator. His attitudes on gender are the most enlightened of the group. He sees women as equals.

The expedition uses a biplane to access a plateau inaccessible by land. There they find Herland, a civilization comprised only of women. Thousands of years earlier, Herland was cut off from the other parts of earth by a volcanic eruption. Most of the men were killed in  the eruption and an ensuing civil war. The women found a way to reproduce by Parthenogenesis, or without sexual intercourse. 

Gillman uses the trio’s stay in Herland as a vehicle for all sorts of social commentary. The women of the country have created a utopia. There is no violence. Everyone is mentally healthy and most are physically fit. The women have achieved a high level of intellectual, technical and moral development. Cooperation is paramount and there is almost no competition. The society is socialist.

This book is very funny. Van, Jeff and Terry’s interaction with the woman of Herland are often satirical. The satire is effective.  Terry in particular, is completely out of his element and though he is a popular and confident man in his home country, comes off as pretentious and buffoonish in Herland.

The women of Herland, as observed by their male visitors, exhibit few of the traditional feminine traits. The big exception is in the attitudes toward motherhood. Gilman sees motherhood and a set of behaviors associated with it as the primary difference between men and women when the effects of culture and sexism are removed.  Most of the virtues of Herland derive from the ethos that has formed has around motherhood.

The concept is described by Moadine , one of the teachers assigned to the men,

““The children in this country are the one center and focus of all our thoughts. Every step of our advance is always considered in its effect on them— on the race. You see, we are MOTHERS,” she repeated, as if in that she had said it all.“

Later, Van observes,

“There you have it. You see, they were Mothers, not in our sense of helpless involuntary fecundity, forced to fill and overfill the land, every land, and then see their children suffer, sin, and die, fighting horribly with one another; but in the sense of Conscious Makers of People. Mother-love with them was not a brute passion, a mere “instinct,” a wholly personal feeling; it was— a religion. “

There is a lot more incorporated into the text related to this belief system and religion and how they are ingrained into the society of Herland.

As the months go by, each of the novel’s protagonists falls in love and marries a local woman. This leads to even more social commentary related to gender, psychology, religion, etc. It also leads to what is, in my opinion, Gilman’s most problematic contention. All of the male characters find that when  women are seen as competent, intelligent, confident and serious, sexual attraction to those women decreases.

At one point Van observes.

“I see now clearly enough why a certain kind of man….resents the professional development of women. It gets in the way of the sex ideal; it temporarily covers and excludes femininity. “

The narrative and characters seem to support the contention that the above is a universal fact that relates to sexual attraction. The novel’s protagonists go on to enjoy a more platonic and in eventually their view, a purer form of love without a sexual component.  The philosophical implications of this are further explored in the text.

While the above is likely to be true for some people who are attracted to women, it is clearly not the case for many others. The above characteristics do not exclude or hinder attraction for many, perhaps the majority of people. For some, the opposite is true. Intelligence, assertiveness and competence can be very attractive in both men and women. On this point, Gilman has gotten it wrong. Of course this book was written in 1915 so perhaps such a misunderstanding concerning this aspect of human attraction sexuality was understandable.

Based upon both the text and some biographical information that I read about Gilman, she believed that there were both biological and cultural differences between the ways that men and women usually behave. She was socialist who believed in a social progress. Her views were egalitarian. However, she believed that it was women who would likely lead great social change. The society that Gillman envisions here fits neatly within the author’s views.

I think that Gillman gets it right when she observes that the difference between men and women is a combination of biology and culture. Though I think that she attributes too many aspects to culture, considering the fact that was writing in 1915, I find her views more accurate then many who write and philosophize about gender issues today.

While I do not believe in socialism (I define socialism as a system in which most of an economy is collectivized through government or other means), I do believe that society can improve. Poverty and violence can be lessened. In fact, these ills have been reduced in many nations since Gillman’s time. The author has put a lot of thought into ways to alleviate these ills.

Ultimately I found this book to be very worthwhile. It is an interesting and entertaining story. It is funny. While the characters are not extremely complex they are interesting. As I often write: one does not have to agree with all of the author's views to find her speculations fascinating. Many of her observations on gender, violence, poverty, etc., are still very relevant in our time. I recommend this book to anyone interested in gender issues, as well as anyone who likes stories about fanciful societies.

Feminism and Books

From time to time over the coming weeks and months, I am planning on reading and sharing my thoughts on several books that relate to the topics of feminism and violence aimed at women. Before I begin to post about these books and the ideas contained in them, I think that it is important to share a little bit about some of my personal biases, options and associations in relation to these topics. As of late my views have become very strong.

I have always considered myself a feminist. Feminism has always been one of the belief systems that I advocated. As with several other social topics, I would have described myself a moderate on the issue.  Over the past year, for various reasons, on various social media, but especially on Twitter, I have strongly spoken in support of causes focusing on the reduction of violence aimed at women as well as upon feminism. Over the past year, my support for feminist ideals, as well as my belief that violence aimed at women is an enormous societal ill that needs more attention, has strengthened.

 

There are two reasons for the increased level of my convictions. First, I have been reading blogs and articles, as well as listening to women, both in my life as well as on social media, concerning these issues. This has convinced me as to the gravity of the issues that women face worldwide as well as the far - reaching benefits of feminism to all of humanity.

Something else has solidified my beliefs and led me to a point where I would now describe myself as an adamant and committed feminist. Something dark has come along with the recent trend of women speaking out strongly on social media  about violence and sexism. I am not unique in observing unrelenting threats, harassment and insults, some of it perpetuated by semi - organized groups, against women who speak about gender issues on social media. This goes well beyond the usual trolling. It is extremely serious. At its worst it involves death, torture and rape threats directed at both notable Internet personalities as well as against less famous people who I know personally. There have also been campaigns of slander, as well as the release of extremely personal information aimed at women who speak about gender issues. Lately, there has been a fair amount of media coverage, especially on the serious American public policy shows and publications on this issue.

Most of what my friends and acquaintances have experienced was not even the result of speaking about feminism, but instead was prompted as a result of protesting the morally unambiguous issues of rape and violence directed at women.

There is a lot more that I have witnessed that has shocked and angered me. It has been really ugly and unrelenting attempt to silence women who express views on these issues.  If anyone is curious for additional details I will be happy to discuss in either in my comments section or through private email.

All this has helped to convince me that misogyny is a much greater problem in the Western world then I ever imagined, and that the ideals embodied by mainstream feminist thought are directly relevant to what is going in in social media.

I bring this up in context of my future posts to highlight that fact that I am not unbiased in this argument. The unrelenting rage that I have observed by a percentage of my fellow men, directed at women who speak on these issues has influenced my opinion in many areas relating to gender issues as well as feminism.

Though I believe that it a extremely important issue, social media harassment of women is certainly not all there is to gender relations, or to the idea set that is feminism. It is but one of many issues and arguably not the most important.  However, my observation of all this has influenced my personal views and has led to an emotional response. I have become downright furious at times. At other times I have lost my objectivity. I am the first to admit that I must be on guard to the fact that my outraged reaction to the harassment may be distorting my view of the big picture. With that said, what I have observed is clearly relevant to the big picture. As such, I felt the need to air this out before I begin commenting upon relevant books and ideas.

I choose to strive for intellectual honesty. That means I will attempt to examine all ideas critically and fairly. I will listen and discuss dissenting views. I intend to be as open minded and civil as I always am. My regular readers know what I mean.

I can and will apply my usual open mindedness to anti–feminist or the ambiguous opinions of others. Feminism is a set if ideas that like any set of ideas, should be open to scrutiny. There are reasoned and civil arguments against feminist ideals. I would even point out that I do not agree with every pro - feminist idea or concept. I will express my disagreement with ideas, including pro – feminist ones, as I see fit in the context of these books.

It is not anti – feminist ideas and opinions that anger me, rather it is the ubiquities and unrelenting harassment of feminists on social media (I must qualify this to say that there are a few extremely odious ideas that I have encountered recently that I have no respect for. For instance, I have run into folks who claim that most women are intellectually inferior to men, that society should accept rape as natural, etc.) . I have had rational discussions with both men and women, who for various reasons are anti – feminists, who are reasoned, respectful and are in no way misogynist. I consider this an intellectual disagreement.

Since I am bandying about the word, I think it is fitting to define what I believe feminism is. In my opinion the term is one of the most misconstrued around. For now, I will start with the basic Miriam - Webster’s definition,

The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.

and

Organized activity in support of women's rights and interests.

The above definition is simple and in accord with my own beliefs. I would go a little further and argue that in order to be a feminist these days also means that one believes that there is still progress to be made in the pursuit of equality.

Some of the thinkers that I will discuss in future posts may have alternate definitions that I hope to explore.

In my opinion feminism has been given a bad name. Feminists have been unfairly stigmatized as all adhering to the most extreme positions. Like most broad based ideologies with a lot of adherents, there are some very controversial feminist thinkers and ideas out there. One does not need to accept all, or any, radical or revolutionary ideas to be a feminist. However, I hope to investigate and weigh in upon some of these controversial ideas in upcoming posts.

I also would like to address the contention that I have heard from some feminists as well as others: that is the opinion that men cannot be feminists. Since I consider feminism to be a set of ideas and ideals, I would argue that anyone who holds such ideas and ideals is a feminist.

I want to mention a couple of books that I have already read and written commentary on.  While not considered a book on feminism, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker, is in my opinion, a profoundly important work that relates to the subject. In this book, Pinker lays out a hardheaded and convincing case for what he believes are five historical forces driving humanity to a more peaceful, prosperous and virtuous future. One of the factors he calls “Feminization”, which is basically the empowerment of women and the increased influence of women on society. My commentary on this work is here.

Christine de Pizan ‘s The Book of The City of Ladies was written in 1405. Christine was amazingly ahead her time in her presentation of what I would call pre - feminist ideals as well as in her identification and criticism of what today we would call stereotyping. I commented upon this book here.

I do think that I will take on some challenging and controversial books. I will be reading authors who have ideas on gender issues that I both agree and disagree with. Thus I anticipate some very interesting posts to come.

Anthony Trollope's Framley Parsonage and Gender Rolls

Like all the previous novels in Anthony Trollope’s Chronicles of Barsetshire series, Framley Parsonage is about the men and women who inhabit the fictional English county of Barsetshire.  As I was reading this entry I began to think about how Trollope portrays gender in different ways. It seems that the author is attempting to show something distinctive concerning the way that men and women behave within their respective roles in society. Obviously the culture that

Trollope is portraying has very distinct and defined gender roles and cultural codes of conduct. However, it appears that Trollope is trying to go beyond those roles to convey something more meaningful.

Before one attempts to extract any messages from this book, I think it important to take a step back and examine how Trollope generally communicates ideas. An impression that one gets from all of the Trollope’s novels that I have read thus far, is that this author is the opposite of an ideologue. When characters are wedded too closely to any particular cause or ideology, such ardor is portrayed as a flaw. Trollope depicts these defects sometimes gently but at other times severely. The overzealous John Bold, a major character in The Warden comes to mind as a good example. In this regard Trollope tends not to take sides in terms of where the character falls on the political and social spectrum. Instead it is the character’s single-mindedness that becomes the issue.

The characters that seem the most balanced and stable are the moderates who posses a strong moral sense. Septimus Harding, hero of the The Warden and minor character in this novel, as well   Miss Dunstable, a moderately important character in several of the books, are good examples. Thus I would be very cautious to tie Trollope too closely to any one movement or ideology.

Another point about Trollope is that he is almost never heavy handed. He does not hit the reader over the head with any message. What he does often do is show, rather then tell, what he perceives as truth, usually a moderate view of truth, about the world through his characters and plot. His messages are not overbearing or strident though he does make some keen observations.

With all this said, throughout Framley Parsonage it seems that the author is trying to say something about the plight of women in society. One thing that is characteristic of the plot is that the many of the males, even the fairly decent and honorable ones, expand most of their time and much of their assets on their own leisure and pleasure as well as political machinations that do not benefit society. Mark Robarts, the protagonist, is a clergyman who becomes more and more drawn into the local habits of hunting, equestrian pursuits and power politics to the point that he comes under the criticism of other characters. It seems that most of the other male characters partake in the same activities.  While the men while away time and money, Robarts’s wife Fanny and his sister Lucy, not only take care of their own families and children, but they go to great sacrifice and risk caring for another family whose mother, Mrs. Crawley, is struck with a serious, seemingly infectious illness.

We also observe this duality within the Crawley family. Mrs. Crawley works and sacrifices enormously for the good of her children. Within this family however, we also see another male character behaving in a different kind of deleterious way. Mr. Crawley, a Clergyman of strident beliefs, is so frugal and severe, that he allows his wife and children to suffer terribly and denies them small pleasures because he is too prideful to accept charity or assistance from others.

At one point when Mrs. Crawley is lying terribly ill, Mr. Crawley attempts to refuse help for her and the family due to his unreasonable beliefs and what is ultimately egotistical pride. His actions and motivations, seem reprehensible as he comments,

“It is all that is left to me of my manliness. That poor broken reed who is lying there sick,— who has sacrificed all the world to her love for me,— who is the mother of my children, and the partner of my sorrows and the wife of my bosom,— even she cannot change me in this, though she pleads with the eloquence of all her wants. Not even for her can I hold out my hand for a dole.”

Lest one think that is too much of a monster, Mr. Crawley does show some decency later on, it is decency that is motivated after he observes the altruism shown by Lucy.

Trollope is a writer who never lets the reader forget that they are reading a book and are being addressed by an author. Thus, he uses meta - fiction and unusual points of view freely. My commentary on this tendency is here. The creative author leaves an interesting clue to his intentions in the narrative. At one point when describing Mark Robarts, Trollope seems to correct himself as if he recognizes that he is being too gender biased,

And then, too, he found that men liked him,— men and women also; men and women who were high in worldly standing. 

What is the reader to make of all this? Is Trollope saying that the men in his society are all narcissistic and occupied with their own pleasure and ideology while the women sacrifice to help their families and community? As it fits Trollope's moderation, I think that his message is a bit more nuanced then this. At times the male characters certainly behave honorably and do a lot of good in Framley Parsonage as they do in other Trollope works. Conversely there are female characters spread throughout this series, such as Mrs. Proudie and Lady Arabella who are downright pernicious. Another female character, Griselda Grantly is vacuous and cold.

Trollope is neither raising women to pedestals nor is he demonizing men. Instead he is showing through observation that in general the women of his society all too often sacrifice and work for others, much more so then do men. Furthermore he is taking males to task for certain aspects of their behavior. He does all this while at portraying a complex and multifaceted world where there are all sorts of nuance and exceptions to general truths.

I have used the term “his society” several times when commenting upon the world that Trollope was describing. Obviously Trollope lived in a very different time then that of the modern reader. Any lessons that we can apply to our current circumstances need to take this into account. With that in mind, modern readers can attempt to evaluate Trollope’s message in the context of the modern world. My personal observation, at least in very general terms, of the society that I am mostly familiar with,  American society, and for a segment of the population, some of these realities exist in the present day.

My commentary on the first book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, The Warden is here.

My commentary on the second book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, Barchester Towers is here.

My commentary on the third book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, Doctor Thorne is here.

My General Commentary on Framley Parsonage is here.

My commentary on Trollop’s unusual Pont of View is here.