Charlotte Perkins Gilman Analysis

Women and Economics by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a prominent American feminist and writer, in her book Women and Economics, argues that women should be economically independent from their husbands. Gilman’s purpose is to show the lack of fulfilment in the lives of women in their homes, in order to persuade her audience that a change in both economic and family life was imminent. She adopts a radical tone for the American people of the late nineteenth century. She supports her claim by critiquing the limits and rules of marriage at the time and by proposing solutions to better accommodate the women’s right to motherhood and participation in the workforce. Women and Economics was one of Gilman’s most universally acclaimed

The idea that women should only be house maids and child maids is one that traps women into this life of hard work for no reward or pay. She states that “the working power of a mother has always been a prominent factor in human life”, but does not affect her economic status (qtd. in Foner 78). She goes on to say that no matter how hard or well a mother works, her life style and things she owns does not correspond to her power to make a living because she is fully dependent on her husband. Gilman makes the case that women should be given economic freedom by being allowed into the workforce. She also believes that a woman has the right to both a career and a family. She writes, “economic independence for the women necessarily involves a change in the home and family relation” (qtd. in Foner 79). While she still believed that women should own and order her home, she advocated for the allowance of hiring outside help, such as housekeepers and cooks, to release them from housework. Similarly, she pushes the idea of professional help to raise the children so that the mother can tend to her career as well. Gilman believed that women could desire both home and family life, but should not have to maintain complete responsibility of both

On her father’s side, she was related to Isabella Beecher Hooker, a famous suffragist and Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist. From this side she “received a relentlessly demanding legacy: to take pride in her womanhood” and to fight for what she believed in (Kessler). At a young age, her father abandoned her family, leaving her mother to support herself and the children. The trials of poverty that she grew up with inspired her desire to become independent. She eventually entered the professional workforce as a teacher and greeting card artist. Later on she married Charles Stetson, and soon after having their first child, she fell into a horrible state of depression. She saw a nerve specialist who put her on his famous “rest cure” (Hedges). After a period of being on bed rest and in isolation, she returned home with orders to forget about her professional work and solely focus on her domestic work. This treatment only intensified her depression, and in the end she decided to leave her family and move to California, where she began to write on suffrage and women’s rights. I believe these two events in her life greatly shaped her worldview and positions on marriage and women’s rights. I believe seeing her mother’s dependence on her father and the trials they faced after he left led to her conclusion that women should be financially independent. The treatment