Herland and Societal Views

featured image: Charlotte Perkins Gilman

When you think of toxic masculinity, you would probably think of a toxic ex you had, or a random song video you saw on TikTok. What if there was a world with no men? Charlotte Gilman’s Herland paints the picture of just that. In her novel, she creates this utopia society without the sight of the male species. In the novel, three men venture to this universe and experience the different ways of a society of just women.

The novel demonstrates how women, liberated from the constraints of a gender binary, are empowered to fully embrace their humanity. Untethered from comparison to men, the women of Herland thrive in a manner distinct from their counterparts in America. In Herland, the three male protagonists navigate within deeply ingrained social beliefs, including an inherited disparity between women and men beyond biology. Terry, embodying chauvinism, frequently adopts prejudiced views on women’s roles and tendencies. Nevertheless, the women of Herland consistently without fail defy these assumptions, despite Terry’s reluctance. The women of Herland accept the three men as their own and treat them as equals, challenging them to adapt to a society where women have no inclination to fulfill the mens’ sexual desires. “If their hair was only long,’ Jeff would complain, ‘they would look so much more feminine’”(Gilman 30). While biological disparities between genders are evident, society’s understanding of gender is a constructed concept. The narrative eliminates gender stereotypes throughout a culture, leading individuals to internalize and accept them as the truth. Terms like masculine and feminine are formed to categorize certain human traits or expressions belonging to one sex or the other. This societal conditioning can significantly impact individuals, which can result in the internalization of gender-divided characteristics. For example, a woman raised in a culture that promotes the notion of “women must be desirable for men” is more likely to prioritize her physical attractiveness over her intellectual mind. Feminists, like Gilman, advocate for a world where individuals can learn to accept both their physical attractiveness, as well as their intelligence, without these traits being linked to their sex. “But surely there are enough characteristics which belong to people, aren’t there? That’s what I mean about you being more like us – more like people” (Gilman 89). The women of Herland have nobody to please so they simply live how they want.

While Herland represents a fictional society, it offers a glimpse into a world free from the disruptive presence of men, who often impair the female experience. Woman in America, and most likely globally, have internalized numerous behaviors aimed at preventing sexual assault, to the point where we may not even consciously realize it as a potential threat. This is just one of many examples of how women endure suffering. “The tradition of men as guardians and protectors has quite died out. These stalwart virgins had no men to fear and therefore in no need of protection. As to wild beasts – there were none in their sheltered land” (Gilman 57). Through Herland, Gilman suggests women’s passion for activities such as gardening to motherhood, to physiology and ethics. As Gilman was born in1860, one can imagine that the societal norms for women pertained to cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children. As the Poetry Foundation writes, “Gilman described the debilitating experience of undergoing the prescribed “rest cure” for “nervous prostration” after the birth of her child. She fictionalized the experience in her most famous short story, ‘“The Yellow Wallpaper”’ (1892)”. However, Gilman could understand that given the opportunity, women would break society’s “normal” boundaries. When asked why she wrote The Yellow Wallpaper, she responded with, “But the best result is this. Many years later I was told that the great specialist had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading The Yellow Wallpaper. It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked” (The Forerunner 1913). Gilman wanted women to read this and relate to it, resulting in what they were going through (masculine societal norms) was national and how they weren’t alone. She brought women together in unity before they were even allowed to vote, much less before slavery was even abolished.

Undoubtedly a feminist, Gilman is apparent about supporting socialism, dedicating her life’s work, such as this novel, to support and bring light to both causes. Her socialist principles resonate vividly in the consciousness of Herland, offering an interesting portrayal. The societal structure ensures that every woman receives equal opportunities, abundant love, and is treated with the most upward respect. In Herland, education is not confined to such rigid measures but is instead flexibility integrated throughout a child’s upbringing, fostering critical thinking and capability. Child-rearing adopts a communal approach, with several mothers nurturing many children, not just their own. Extremely careful management of the food supply prevents hunger, and rather than allowing over population to deplete resources, they address the issue with empathy, even encouraging some women to refrain from motherhood. “…whereas our children grow up in private homes and families, with every effort made to protect and seclude them from a dangerous world, here they grew up in a wide, friendly world, and knew it for theirs, from the first” (Gilman 101). In contrast to the United States with a “every man for himself” mentality, Herland thrives on cooperation with its neighbors. When a woman faces difficulties, such as Ellador’s distress over the concept of hell (110), she has access to support and guidance through established systems. With each woman prioritizing united welfare, they came together to uplift one another. As this anonymous writer writes, “However, I felt like she greatly missed out on the opportunity to explore the multitudinous ways in which women could derive sexual pleasure in the absence of oft-disappointing male genitalia.” I wonder how Gilman felt about the talk about sexual relationships and reproduction, although it was considered taboo in her time. It makes you wonder if the women of Herland had female-female relationships for greater sexual desires than women in heterosexual relationships. Since women are often expected to pleasure men, they may not have known how to deliver their own. Eugenics is such an interesting topic that Gilman may have been too scared to write about, so this subtle information she provided gave the readers a chance to fantasize on their own.  

References

(n.d.). Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman. Poetry Foundation. Retrieved May 7, 2024, from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charlotte-anna-perkins-gilman 

(2020, September 25). Herland: An Analysis of Gender and Social Consciousness. Slanted Spines. Retrieved May 7, 2024, from https://slantedspines.com/2020/09/25/herland/ 

The Forerunner (n.d.). Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper” (1913). The American Yawp Reader. Retrieved May 7, 2024, from https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/18-industrial-america/charlotte-perkins-gilman-why-i-wrote-the-yellow-wallpaper-1913/