🧭🤝🚺
In this story Gilman imagines a utopian society without men (a dream to some I know). Like many classics, after wading through the overt racism, slurs, and outdated ideology, I found this to be a pleasant read. I especially took the advice from the forward and looked at it through the lens of a white feminist satire reflective of its time. The women in Herland reproduce parthenogenetically and have almost a hive mind when it comes to raising their children.
The feminist angle is interesting because it’s so clearly a product of its era, and having the POV be a man really drove that home. The utopian vision Gilman builds is narrow too, mostly speaking to a specific kind of white, middle-class womanhood.
Still, I found this story compelling. There’s something about seeing a utopia built entirely around what women could do without men that echoed some modern day equalizers, the environmental aspect especially, even with a version of feminism that feels dated now.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. I’d recommend it for the plot alone. Through a satirical modern lens I felt that Gilman’s take challenges us in an interesting way, especially keeping in mind she wrote this before women even had the right to vote.
In this story Gilman imagines a utopian society without men (a dream to some I know). Like many classics, after wading through the overt racism, slurs, and outdated ideology, I found this to be a pleasant read. I especially took the advice from the forward and looked at it through the lens of a white feminist satire reflective of its time. The women in Herland reproduce parthenogenetically and have almost a hive mind when it comes to raising their children.
The feminist angle is interesting because it’s so clearly a product of its era, and having the POV be a man really drove that home. The utopian vision Gilman builds is narrow too, mostly speaking to a specific kind of white, middle-class womanhood.
Still, I found this story compelling. There’s something about seeing a utopia built entirely around what women could do without men that echoed some modern day equalizers, the environmental aspect especially, even with a version of feminism that feels dated now.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. I’d recommend it for the plot alone. Through a satirical modern lens I felt that Gilman’s take challenges us in an interesting way, especially keeping in mind she wrote this before women even had the right to vote.