CPG and Womens Oppression

8/3/2019 CPG and Womens Oppression

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Women and Economics

Owen StewartNov. 14 2011

Anne-Marie Feenbirg-Dibon


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Written in 1898, Charlotte Perkins-Gilmans book, Women and Economics, touches on many

important issues expounded by the First Wave of feminism. It is a very logical book, and looks

at, among other things, the causes of womens oppression, how women are oppressed, and why

this is bad for the human race. In essence, Gilman writes that women are oppressed through their

economic dependence on men, that this oppression is propagated by society and that it in turn,

hurts humanity. Though not entirely relevant to todays world, much of what Gilman writes can

apply to modern times.

In short, women are oppressed by a patriarchal society that excludes women from economic

independence. A woman, for much of the 19th

and 20th

centuries, was one hundred percent

dependant on a man (preferably her husband) to survive. If a woman did not have a husband,

then prostitution was a ready alternative, but again left a woman just as dependant on men for

economic survival. This economic dependence on men extended to exclude women from the

benefits of progress and from taking credit in the development of a progressive society. This

doesnt mean that women had no influence on progress and wealth creation, as women helped

make the conditions for men to create wealth, but never actually created wealth themselves.

Here, Gilman draws a connection between economic independence and freedom. If you are

not economically independent you cannot be free, and women were certainly not economically

independent. She often draws connections to the natural world to back up her point. There is no

animal in the world which has one sex entirely dependent on the other for its survival. If this

situation did exist, then it would hold back the species, as half of the population would be forced

to provide for the other half. She does make concessions that at one time in history, it may have

made sense to set up society in a patriarchal nature, but that we as a species have moved beyond

that time, and our patriarchal society has evolved to oppress women and hurt the human race.


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The complete economic reliance of women on men cannot be over stated. The world was the

mans to command. No matter where he landed on the socio-economic scale, men went out,

worked and earned a livelihood, while women were confined to the home, raising children and

doing (or organizing) housework. Going further, Gilman makes the point that woman actually do

more (unpaid) work than men, as women are cleaners, cookers, educators, organizers and

counsellors while men have a job. These tasks are more than a womans employment, but have

become a womans duty.

There are a handful of reasons as to why women continue to be oppressed. The first and

another of the major themes of Women and Economics is the idea of conditioning and a social

norm. Gilman explains the difference between gender and sex, and how gender is a social

construct with little or no basis in the natural (physical) world. This means that women and men

act the way they do because of society, not from some biological pre-disposition. And if society

made gender what it is, then society can change these gender roles, and in particular change what

Gilman sees as the negative aspects of gender roles in the 19th

and 20th

centuries.

Gilman makes a connection between a womans role as the educator of a household (teaching

the children) and the persistence of these gender roles. Firstly, children act like their parents, so

from birth children are being conditioned to be a certain way. Beyond that, gender roles are

actively encouraged by parents and society. Boys are encouraged to be boisterous, aggressive,

and athletic while girls are encouraged to be timid, nurturing and passive. Boys are given G.I

Joes and girls are given baby dolls. Boys are given runners, while girls are given flats. All of

these factors encourage children to act a certain way and conform to a gender norm.

A common argument in favour of a patriarchal society is that women are justified in being

confined to the home because of Motherhood. They are biologically capable of producing


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children; therefore their roles in society should be constricted to that lone job. In a sense, being a

Mother is a womans career. This is wrong for a handful of reasons. Within the home women do

much more than simply bear and raise children. As listed above, women are cookers and cleaners

as well as Mothers. Saying that Motherhood constricts women to that lone role ignores the

realities of what women do in the world and all of the services that they provide.

Gilman does make a point to say the monogamous marriage is a good thing, but its perverted

manifestation in the 19th and 20th centuries is bad. This sort of marriage creates a

employer/employee relationship between husband and wife, except where the womans labour is

unpaid.

According to Gilman, this oppression of women is bad for humanity in its entirety. Excluding

Women from the workforce means you are keeping fully half of the world from producing

wealth and participating in human progress. Fifty percent of the minds of the world were

uneducated, and were kept from helping in the cause of progress. As industrialization moves

forward, there is a greater need for specialized labour. If half of the world is held back from

contributing to this specialization, then the whole world will suffer.

The gender roles of society are also incredibly negative for the human race, both for men

and women. They are exclusive and create a black and white dichotomy. Men must act like a

man, and women like a woman, there is little room for an in between. A feminine man or a

masculine woman arent what is normal and are ostracised. This means that people cannot be

who they are, they must instead conform to what society deems as normal, which is anything but

freedom.

This separation of the genders has also lead to the over sexualisation of gender roles. Women

are raised to be excessively feminine, and men excessively masculine. Women are encouraged to


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emphasise their femininity to attract a husband. This means that for a woman to be successful

she must be a docile house wife, producing children and a clean home, nothing more. This also

forces women into being consumers, not producers, which again holds back the progression of

humanity. On the other side of the gender coin, men are encouraged to be overly aggressive, and

to seek a woman who fits the perfect housewife norm. This creates unnecessary competition, but

also forces men to have to support their family alone, which again isnt freeing.

Here Gilman draws another connection between the natural world and our own. Pointing out

that in the animal kingdom certain species of animals have excessively developed sexual

characteristics (a peacock for example), which play a role in natural selection and the process of

evolution. If these sexual charactaristics begin to interfere with evolution (a peacock with

feathers too large for it to successfully feed, yet it still reproduces because its large feathers are

attractive), then there is a problem for the species.

Being confined to the home also creates neurosis and mental stress. These neurotic

tendencies can manifest themselves in women who are over protective of their space and role in

the world. Coincidentally, these neurosis are similar (though less extreme) to those found in

prisoners kept in solitary confinement (Gawande).

If women are the ones who nurture and educate children, and women when confined to the

home become neurotic, what does this mean for the quality of a childs education? These women

who are uneducated, unsocial, and neurotic could not make good teachers. Theyd have few

skills beyond those involved with house work, and little experience in the outside world. The

women themselves were brought up to propagate a negative societal norm. How can this woman

be a good teacher for a child, especially a girl. This neurotic, uneducated woman could only be a

negative influence, capable of raising a girl to become a trophy wife, leaving the girl ill prepared


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for the realities of sex and the world. Clearly educating children poorly isnt good for the human

race as a whole.

Women and Economics is a powerful book. It creates a strong argument for the First Wave

of the feminist movement. It covers how women are oppressed, why women are oppressed, and

why this is bad for the human race as a whole, which is no small feat. It highlights a connection

between economic independence and freedom, and also of the ability of society to create what is

normal. It is an optimistic book, as Gilman herself states, far from being inscrutable problems,

requiring another life to explain, these sorrows and perplexities of our lives are but the natural

results of natural causes, and that, as soon as we ascertain the causes, we can do much to remove

them and Gilman does just this. She sees the problem of the economic dependence of the

world, explains how society encourages and justifies this economic dependence, and finally

explains how this economic dependence holds back humanity as a whole.


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Works Cited

Gawande, Atul. "Is Long-term Solitary Confinement Torture?" The New Yorker. The New

Yorker, 30 Mar. 2009. Web. 8 Nov. 2011.

.

Perkins-Gilman, Charlotte. "Women and Economics."Digital.library Server at Penn Libraries.

Pennsylvania State University. Web. 25 Oct. 2011.

.

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CPG and Womens Oppression