Women and Economics a Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women As a Factor in Social Evolution - Softcover

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061330736 ISBN 13: 9780061330735

Publisher: Harpercollins College Div, 1971

Synopsis

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1898. Excerpt: ... Food and Defence strong arm. But the mother woman, enslaved, could not do this. Then man, the father, found that slavery had its obligations : he must care for what he forbade to care for itself, else it died on his hands. So he slowly and reluctantly shouldered the duties of his new position. He began to feed her, and not only that, but to express in his own person the thwarted uses of maternity: he had to feed the children, too. It seems a simple arrangement. When we have thought of it at all, we have thought of it with admiration. The naturalist defends it on the ground of advantage to the species through the freeing of the mother from all other cares and confining her unreservedly to the duties of maternity. The poet and novelist, the painter and sculptor, the priest and teacher, have all extolled this lovely relation. It remains for the sociologist, from a biological point of view, to note its effects on the constitution of the human race, both in the individual and in society. When man began to feed and defend woman, she ceased proportionately to feed and defend herself. When he stood between her and her physical environment, she ceased proportionately to feel the influence of that environment and respond to it. When he became her immediate and all - important environment, she began proportionately to respond to this new influence, and to be modified accordingly. In a free state, speed was of as great advantage to the female as to the male, both in enabling her to catch prey and in preventing her from being caught by enemies; but, in her new condition, speed was a disadvantage. She was not allowed to do the catching, and it profited her to be caught by her new master. Free creatures, getting their own food and maintaining their own lives, develope an active capacity for attain...

About this title

From the Back Cover

Women and Economics is Gilman's most original and famous work of nonfiction. In it she examines the origins of women's subordination and its function in society. Woman, she argues, makes a living by marriage - not by the work she does - and thus man becomes her economic environment. As a consequence, her "female" attributes dominate her "human" qualities because they determine her survival. Gilman's thesis challenges both biological and theological arguments about women's innate passivity and defies the virtual exclusion of women in classical sociological theory. If women are to fully engage in domestic and public life, Gilman contends that their emancipation requires both economic participation and adequate child care. Gilman's argument in this classic work resonates today, as women continue their struggle to find a meaningful independent identity and to balance work and family. Here reprinted with a new introduction, Women and Economics belongs on the same shelf as works by Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir, and other pioneering feminists.

About the Author

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860 – 1935) was a prominent American feminist, sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform. In 1884, she married the artist Charles Walter Stetson. Their only child, Katharine Beecher Stetson, was born the following year. In 1888, Charlotte separated from her husband – a rare occurrence in the late nineteenth century. The two legally divorced in 1894. Following the separation, Charlotte moved with her daughter to Pasadena, California, where she became active in several feminist and reformist organizations.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harpercollins College Div
• Publication date: 1971
• ISBN 10: 0061330736
• ISBN 13: 9780061330735
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 356