Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917

As the most recognized and celebrated feminist of her time, the prolific writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman initially battled the societal expectation that she should not pursue an intellectual life but should instead relegate herself to the sphere that society expected for her to occupy. The Victorian concept of spheres constituted the belief that men and women were destined to occupy two separate spheres, men outside the household in society and women in the home caring for the household and her children. Gilman did not think gender should be the deciding factor that governed expectations for men and women. Instead, Gilman believed that, as a member of the white race, she and other white women held her racial identity and potential for greater evolution and advancement in common with the men of their race. Gilman believed that a third sphere, the “human” sphere, comprised the common ground white men and women should be able to occupy collaboratively, working in tandem to reach the potential their race was destined to attain. Gilman attested that sex and gender differences should not be the determining factor in deciding who should enjoy certain rights under the law or social expectations; it was race that defined someone as worthy of dignity and autonomy. Gilman insisted that all white people were equal regardless of their gender. Gilman believed that women have just as much right, and an equal obligation, to participate in intellectual and racial progress. Preventing women from doing so by relegating them to the home was an unforgivable affront, achieved only through forcible subjugation, which had been the expectation since the beginning of human interaction.

Her work Women and Economics was a profoundly impactful title and introduced the concept she called the “sexuo-economic” (136) dynamic. This dependency into which women had been forced by men had emerged as the result of the physical and psychological subjugation of women. It had the effect of compelling women to evolve into individuals who were sexually desirable to men, especially in that they were weaker and more dependent. Gilman traced the inequality between men and women back to Biblical times, when men realized that they could exercise physical dominion over women by forcing them into sexual submission.

Gilman’s works included criticism of men she believed were like this original “primitive rapist.” Gilman believed the downfall of civilization occurred in the garden of Eden; she interpreted the Biblical story of Adam and Eve as the moment when men realized they could use rape as a tool for dominance, aggression, and forced subservience. This characterization of men as echoes of the initial “primitive rapist” were intended to shame and embarrass men, but, to Gilman’s dismay, it had the opposite effect. When men began to embrace this notion instead of being shamed as Gilman hoped they would be, she changed her tactic. The men in question did not directly own the identity of rapist, but they admitted they believed if women were to decide to begin acting unlike women, they were within their rights to put them in what they believed was their proper place. Her response tactic was to address men in a patronizing fashion, chastising them as little boys without control over their emotions and behaviors and declare them not much of a threat at all.

Gilman believed that women were the superior sex, and it was only through physical aggression that men had managed to overpower women and subjugate them into fulfilling roles that served men’s interests. Ever since, Gilman believed, women had been unable to take their place at the true helm of society. Women, Gilman argued, given their physical attributes and moral virtues, should in fact be the sexual selectors, not men. Men, in Gilman’s view, were interchangeable, as a man’s cooperation in the act of procreation was unskilled and characterized by brevity. Women, she attested, were best equipped for choosing mates for the furtherance of the white race and should be given that right in line with their physical design and proven ability to ground civilization in its core values.

While she acknowledges that other historians often dismiss Gilman’s racism as an unfortunate yet tangential aspect of her historical context, Bederman disagrees with the notion that her feminism can be separated from her racial views. For Bederman, Gilman’s racism is an essential part of her feminism and a crucial point upon which she bases her argument for equality among white Anglo-Saxon men and women. Though she was a fierce defender of women’s rights, her feminism did not extend to advocating for women of color. Gilman believed that as long as Black men in particular remained uncivilized, it was a wasteful endeavor to try to ensure rights for Black women, as they would always be subjugated as long as their male counterparts remained uncivilized.