Texte Herland Sex Before Gender
Texte Herland Sex Before Gender
Texte Herland Sex Before Gender
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Feminist Studies
BERNICE L. HAUSMAN
THE FORER BY
CONTENTS
A Small God And A Large Goddess.What Dianthe Did. Serial. Chap. I.
Arrears. Verse.
Where The Heart is.
Three Thanksgivings. Our Androcentrio Culture, or The
Introducing The World, The Fleshb,
And The Devil. Man-made World. Chap. i.
Comment and Review.
How Doth The list. Verse. Personal Problems.
The cover of the first issue of The Forerunner which was written and edited
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman from 1909 to 1916.
It is my hope that t
study of Gilman an
her period.7
My analysis offers both a corrective reading of Herland and
some suggestions for how such a reading can have an impact
on the current status of "sex" and "gender" in feminist theoriz-
ing. This reinterpretation of Gilman is necessary because con-
temporary Gilman scholars continue to interpret her work
within a sex/gender paradigm. For example, in a recent book,
Carol Farley Kessler writes: "Like social scientists today, Gil-
man carefully differentiated between gender-the social roles,
in which she found human gender similarity nearly limitless-
and sex, the biological functions, to which she found sex differ-
ence limited."8 Gilman, however, distinguished, within sex,
those aspects of what she called "sex-distinction" that could
and could not be changed, but she did not differentiate be-
tween "sex" and "gender" as we know those terms. Instead, she
accepted certain necessary distinctions appropriate to sexual
reproduction and dismissed others as the "excessive sex-dis-
tinctions" that had developed in conjunction with those neces-
sary sex-distinctions.9 What makes her work difficult for us to
accommodate today is precisely the fact that the distinctions
occur within the category of sex. She did not have a semantic
distinction to suggest that certain kinds of sexual difference
are "cultural," and thereby changeable, as opposed to those
that are "natural" and therefore immutable. What she had in-
stead was an evolutionary paradigm that suggested that all as-
pects of the human condition-including its biological constitu-
tion-were open to change. She dealt with distinctions within
one category, which led her to suggest that sex inequity was a
result of the "excessive sex-distinction" foisted on women. Thus,
she distinguished in terms of degree (that is, quantitatively)
within the one category, rather than between qualitative cate-
gory distinctions (the social versus the natural).
Consider, for example, the following, from Women and Eco-
nomics:
The evolution of organic life goes on in geometric progression: cells com-
bine, and form organs; organs combine, and form organisms; organisms
combine, and form organizations. Society is an organization. Society is
the fourth power of the cell. It is composed of individual animals of genus
homo, living in organic relation. The course of social evolution is the grad-
context of evolution
Gilman participated
racism as part of its
In her "breakthroug
tically examined th
nomic dependency,
the one who, "from
fects on the constitu
ual and in society" (
is the idea that the
which suggests no
hegemonic position
This biological para
Spencer in the nin
twentieth through
and others. The ide
were necessarily de
biology, was one res
on Western though
newed interest in L
ty of acquired chara
cial theory as a way
races and the sexes
Darwinism, a catch
evolutionary theory
came a significant f
cates for eugenics an
winists espoused su
er, because the idea
theory that the sam
tion of nature and
man's social Darwin
of Ward, rested on
entity, could, if they
nization of society."'
Gilman's reference
searcher of sex in human culture resonates with the narrative
structure ofHerland. In the novel, three men find evidence of a
order to produce fo
are advocates of ani
have bred the wail o
tirely and absolutely
nized around princ
dren-to the extent
human children at t
sive to Herland wo
most of the characteristics of women in the rest of the world-in
Gilman's language we would say that they are without "sex-
distinction." Their distinguishing characteristic is a pro-
nounced communal, not familial, maternalism.
Herlanders reproduce parthenogenetically (that is, asexual-
ly), and they are responsible for their own livelihoods. Thus,
Herlanders do not depend upon men economically nor do they
need them for procreation. In the Darwinian terms Gilman es-
tablished in Women and Economics, this means that in Her-
land natural selection continues unimpeded by sexual selec-
tion (because there is none of the latter). According to evolu-
tionary theory, sexual selection and natural selection each
work as a check on the other. As an example of this, toward the
beginning of Women and Economics Gilman tells the hypothet-
ical story of the peacock and peahen: if the former were to de-
velop excessive plumage in the interests of attracting the latter
as a mate, he would perish due to natural selection because
the weight of the feathers would be counterproductive to self-
preservation. On the other hand, if the peahen were to become
"so small and dull as to fail to keep herself and her young fed
and defended, then she would die; and there would be another
check to excessive sex-distinction" (p. 35). However,
in her position of economic dependence in the sex-relation, sex-distinction is
with [the human female] not only a means of attracting a mate, as with all
creatures, but a means of getting her livelihood, as it the case with no other
creature under heaven. Because of the economic dependence of the human
female on her mate, she is modified to sex to an excessive degree. . . . It is
not the normal sex-tendency, common to all creatures, but an abnormal
sex-tendency, produced and maintained by the abnormal economic relation
which makes one sex get its living from the other by the exercise of sex-
functions. (Pp. 38-39)
stances of subjectio
ment of a particular
Even Gilman's use of
"nature":
Economic independence is a relative condition at best. In the broadest sense,
all living things are economically dependent upon others,-the animals upon
the vegetables, and man upon both. In a narrower sense, all social life is
economically interdependent, man producing collectively what he could by
no possibility produce separately. (Women and Economics, pp. 10-11)
Here we can see how the idea of "economy" was, for Gilman, in-
clusive rather than exclusive: "economy" had to do with the
getting of food and shelter, regardless of species. A term that
we generally think of as inextricably linked to culture was, for
Gilman, about the "natural" world as well.
Gilman's story about how the "abnormal" economic relation
between women and men came about also demonstrates the
conceptual dependence of her work upon the gynocentric a
count of Lester Frank Ward and its positivistic view of evolu-
tionary change. She wrote:
Primitive man and his female were animals, like other animals. ... [S]he
was as nimble and ferocious as he, save for the added belligerence of the
males in their sex-competition. In this competition, he, like the other male
creatures, fought savagely with his hairy rivals; and she, like other female
creatures, complacently viewed their struggles, and mated with the victor.
(Women and Economics, p. 60)
birth, to "renounce m
this failed, they wou
they birthed. Altho
Somel relates calmly
ing is as specialized
(except for a few, w
their unfitness for
childcare to care for
Again, Lamarckian ideas bolster Gilman's eugenicism.
Women with "bad qualities" are asked to renounce mother-
hood, presumably so that these qualities are not passed on;
however, even if a child is born to such a woman, by taking the
task of rearing out of the mother's hands, the society believes
that it will be able to curtail the expression of these qualities
in the child and thus the transmission of these qualities to
later generations.
Women's interest in this process is defined by their special
relation to "the race." Gynocentric evolutionism suggested that
women were the "race type"-"her natural impulses were more
in accordance with the laws of growth than were those of the
male"; "woman was the natural, patient, tireless worker, the
mother. Males were essentially individualistic and competi-
tive."22 Gilman understood this distinction between women and
men of the dominant race according to the prevalent idea of
"male variability and female conservatism"-"She was the deep,
steady, mainstream of life, and he the active variant, helping to
widen and change that life, but rather as an adjunct than as
an essential" (Women and Economics, p. 130).23 Implicit in Gil-
man's argument is the idea that women are superior to men,
at least with regard to the human race as a whole. As Mariana
Valverde points out, however, for evolutionary feminists like
Gilman and Elizabeth Blackwell, "the paradigm of the human
'race' was the Anglo-Saxon Protestant ruling bloc."24
The men who come to Herland believe that the "sex-distinc-
tion" common in white Victorian society is universal. They be-
lieve in the very "feminine nature" that Gilman found so de-
structive, and they believe that they can make the women ex-
press their latent "feminine nature." Gilman tried to prove
that what the men think is a biologically ordained pattern of
behavior was, in fact, a convention specifically related to their
tionary concerns ab
groups.30
What Gilman does show us is how social organizations de-
pend upon expectations about biology and its purchase on
human behavior. In Herland, the social organization of the
sexes, what we would now call the "sex/gender system," de-
pends upon, is indeed founded upon, the social organization of
reproduction. And, before the men arrive, reproduction in Her-
land happens without "sex." Without "sex," Herland's inhabi-
tants lose sexual specificity, "sex-distinction"; they become
"people." When the men meet the people of Herland, they, not
the people, become "sexed." The people, the women, remain un-
sexed, precisely because the economy of their country, as well
as the economy of their personhood, can get along fine without
"sex."
Social relations, in Gilman's feminist revision of evolution-
ary theory, cannot be separated from sexual embodiment. In-
deed, social relations proceed from sexual embodiment-but in
Gilman's view, sexual embodiment does not concern desire but
the ordered progression of life through generations. Sexual em-
bodiment, in other words, represents for Gilman the reproduc-
tive portion of the life of every individual, but it does not define
the individual in her or his totality. When it does-when either
women or men become "the sex"-those subjects feel con-
strained by their definition as "sex" itself.
It is a testament to our own immersion in a culture that em-
phasizes (ad nauseum) individual desire that we cannot see
such a vision as anything other than loss-a loss of desire (that
would signify for us a loss of self), a loss of the passion that
makes life worthwhile and interesting. But in this interpreta-
tion we are already siding with the men who infiltrate Her-
land, insofar as they find Herlander dramas boring and the
meaning of marriage diminished when it does not include ro-
mantic "sex-love." "Desire" as we understand it-as an aspect of
personhood that is constitutive and universal-is understood by
Gilman to be a concept fabricated and perpetuated by men to
maintain the "excessive sex-distinction" that subordinates
women to men.
The Herland world takes biological reproduction into ac-
count in its organization of social duties, work, and domestici-
NOTES
I would like to thank the readers for Feminist Studies for their helpful suggestio
for revision. As always, Nancy Cervetti was a sounding board for my ideas and o
fered me significant critical feedback. My thanks to all those who helped me to r
fine the essay; responsibility for its flaws resides with me alone.
Elizabeth Blackwell as a Fe
7 (July 1996): 51-72. For a
abeth Blackwell, see Mariana Valverde, "'When the Mother of the Race Is Free':
Race, Reproduction, and Sexuality in First-Wave Feminism," in Gender Conflicts,
ed. Franca Iacovetta and Mariana Valverde (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1992), 3-26.
6. See Carol Stabile, Feminism and the Technological Fix (Manchester, U.K.: Man-
chester University Press, 1994), 27-36.
7. Krug's work on Elizabeth Blackwell provides an interesting comparison to
Gilman, although Krug herself does not mention the latter; Valverde's essay on
First Wave feminism does mention Gilman but only in passing.
8. Carol Farley Kessler, Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Her Progress toward Utopia
with Selected Writings (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995), 78.
9. As another example of what I would call the current misreading of Gilman,
Frances Bartkowski writes: "In Women and Economics Gilman uses analogies to the
animal world to describe male and female characteristics. ... While Gilman does a
great deal to prove that such concepts of sex distinctions are socially transmitted
she also accepts certain distinctions as biologically and psychically immutable." The
problem here is more subtle than that presented by Kessler. Bartkowski does not
explicitly use the terminology of sex/gender distinction to articulate her point, bu
the sex/gender paradigm is nevertheless the lens through which she interpret
Gilman's ideas. See Frances Bartkowski, Feminist Utopias (Lincoln: University o
Nebraska Press, 1989), 27.
10. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Re
lation between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution, ed. Carl Degler
(New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 101-2. All other references to this book will be
cited parenthetically in the text.
11. Lois Magner claims:
The ancient analogy of the "social organism" was used both by Spencer and Gilman, but thei
views of its composition and proper mode of behavior could hardly be more dissimilar. Within
Spencer's system the individual units of the social organism owed nothing to each other or t
the whole. Gilman saw the social organism as the form of life within which, and only within
which, human beings could be fully human.
Magner notes that Gilman "even claimed that the social organism did not exist
merely as a useful analogy or illustration, but as a literal biological fact" (emphasis
added). See Lois Magner, "Darwin and the Woman Question," in Critical Essays on
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ed. Joanne Karpinski (New York: G.K. Hall, 1992), 121-
22.
12. There are extraordinarily few treatments of Gilman's evolutionism in the criti
cal literature. There are two essays by Lois Magner, both of which are largely de-
scriptive. See Lois Magner, "Women and the Scientific Idiom: Textual Episodes from
Wollstonecraft, Fuller, Gilman, and Firestone," Signs 4 (autumn 1978): 61-80, and
her "Darwinism and the Woman Question," 115-28. Ann J. Lane provides an ex-
tended discussion of Women and Economics in To "Herland" and Beyond: The Life
and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (New York: Pantheon, 1990). For a reade
seeking an introduction to Gilman's ideas, Lane's synopsis is an excellent source
However, because Lane attempts to present to the contemporary reader the reason
why Gilman's ideas are valuable for current feminist analysis, she tends to make
them understandable within the contemporary gender paradigm of feminist theory.
The most comprehensive discussion of Gilman's relation to evolutionary theory an
social Darwinism appears in Maureen L. Egan, "Evolutionary Theory in the Socia
Philosophy of Charlotte Perkins Gilman," Hypatia 4 (spring 1989): 102-19. Egan
treats a wide range of Gilman's work, placing it in the intellectual contexts of phi