In one of her finest works, Charlotte Perkins Gilman is well-known for her writing of “Women and Economics” in 1898. In this work, she described how rigid social norms and unequal gender roles between men and women negatively affected women’s rights. In addition to these social norms, it prevented women from developing or having opportunities equal to those of men, thus neither acknowledging nor utilizing their true abilities or potential. Through her work, Gilman tried to appeal to her audience within the US to courageously ask for women’s equality. Furthermore, this work became a more influential and widespread appeal throughout the country during the Progressive Era. Rather than sitting at home and asking their spouse for money or waiting to be told by their husband as in the past, more women began to stand up and speak up for themselves. The motivational writing of Gilman was a call to action. Women began to realize their potential. Women should have the right to be treated just as men. They deserved to be treated, respected, and valued in all aspects of life as men were: equal human rights and economic freedom in comparison with men. Gilman cleverly used her pen to voice concerns that many women thought but were not courageous enough to express. She provided a plethora of facts and solid evidence throughout her writing. Gilman’s writing was extremely helpful in enlightening women, who initially followed the social norms, but never critically questioned them.
Women were born with their innate sense of motherhood. However, it did not mean that they had to be limited to staying at home doing housewife chores all day such as cleaning, cooking, and caring for their children, etc. Before the mid-1800s, women were always carrying out their housewife duties no different than unpaid servants to their families. Furthermore, during this period, most women within the country blindly and unconsciously accepted these social norms created by society. Therefore, Gilman wanted to break this toxic and unrelenting belief that women had. In essence, women were conditioned to these social expectations and norms. It hindered women’s ability to think outside the box or see their true potential beyond their everyday household duties. Gilman argued that women could even do better than men in certain jobs or social positions if they had the chance to prove their prowess. However, women performed the same heavy tasks as farmers, workers in factories, etc., but were paid lower wages compared to men. Gilman found wage discrimination and exclusion of women from many types of jobs as unreasonable and unacceptable not only to her but also to all women within the country. Since the Fifteenth Amendment was granted in the mid-1800s, it allowed all black males their right to voice their concerns as well as to vote, but not women. This action proved that women were being treated unfairly much longer than men comparatively.
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Women believed that they were expected to solely complete their chores without discussion until they found some distinct and persuasive words in Gilman’s writing such as “servant” and “unproductive parasite”, in which they were embarrassed. Fortunately, Gilman was able to convey and vividly express the truths that women had suffered for a long period. Her thoughts and perceptions in her writings caused an explosion of the inequalities that women suffered. Gilman wrote such convincing arguments that it made all women find reasons why it was time for them to politically fight for what they truly deserved. During World War I, the men had gone onto the battlefield to carry out their duties and thus could not uphold their work at home concurrently. Therefore it was an opportunity for women to show their strengths, as well as to prove their abilities to the government. Women completed jobs that were previously done only by male workers. While men were fighting the war, women were multitasking: they fulfilled jobs that these men left vacant due to the war, carried out their household duties, and supported their families financially. As a result, in the late 1800s, the tables turned when more women from different social classes, gathered into groups and temperance clubs, remarkably the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) with 150,000 members founded in 1874. During this time, women were able to truly enjoy larger opportunities such as attending college, a better education, higher wages, and higher jobs with more social positions. Following this first ideal wave, there were eight million employed women in the US in the 1900s.
As a result of a consistently progressive movement, the tables dramatically turned during the Progressive Era when it finally brought women into the spotlight “The New Feminism”. The word “feminism” is to describe the Golden Women Era in which women had greater opportunities to freely express their emotions, opinions, demand for sexual freedom, etc. The women’s performance during World War I played a vital role in convincing the government that women were worth the same as men. The government began to look at women from a more open-minded perspective and thus they eventually changed their perception of women. Therefore, after World War 1, the government ratified the Nineteenth Amendment gave women equal rights as men, protected their rights, and empowered women as individuals. This officially became a big turning point in US history. Gilman valued individualism and thus encouraged women to become independent standing on their own two feet in which they could control their lives independently and financially. During the Progressive Era, a young woman could determine whether she wanted marriage or not. She was able to freely decide to put her marriage or career first without hesitation. In the past, women were not able to negotiate whether they were ready or not to have a child. Now the advent of birth control methods gave them options during this Progressive Era. They instinctively had more sexual freedom than men did. Women became smarter, more humane, and more selective. After suffering a long period of inequality, women had more of a desire for their careers and financial independence than ever. Women with more economic independence and freedom did not hurt anyone but benefited their families and society. Once women became independent, they could pursue their dream jobs and earn the same wage or even higher pay compared to their husbands. Once women became independent, men stopped viewing women as worthless or lower-value living creatures that were dependent upon them. Once women became independent, they became individuals with unlimited potential that contributed to their society’s development. It was never to measure men and women on a scale to determine who was better or could dominate in their home or society, but to prove one thing: women could support their families financially and support their country politically as contributing members of society.
One woman could voice out her opinion about her concerns and nobody might hear, or someone did hear her concerns but then pretended like they did not. Gilman, on behalf of all women, successfully used her pen to speak out those un-expressible concerns about equality and independence. Gilman, indeed, significantly contributed to the reconceptualization of gender roles at that time. Once women positively and knowingly changed their self-perception acknowledging that they could become breadwinners, political leaders, professionals, etc., equal to men, they would begin to ask themselves why not take action and fight for what they truly deserved. Once women were awakened with the new thought that men and women are equally created, they would find obedience or dependence on men was the thing that should never have existed between men and women; women would stop looking for rules of others to follow but create her own rules of her own lives – self-determination. These progressive thoughts were not about self-centeredness or petitioning for a higher level of domination compared to men in society. These were matters of equality and independence that brought women self-worth and advancement.
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