PAPER 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

PAPER 2 - Essay Example These texts highlight deficiencies within the society with gender inequalities as the issue and to create awareness to the readers. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an American writer who explored the feminist utopia using her fictional novella â€Å"Herland†. Gilman created an imaginary society occupied by just women, with no need for men. They use parthenogenesis to produce their daughters and portray a superior morality. This society that was women-centered advocated for industriousness as well as motherhood and avoided approaches to life that perpetrated individualistic competitions. She figured out that this society would be appropriate for women to relate with each other in a more cooperative manner since there would be no necessity to dominate one another. In this novella Gilman tends to nurture and merge the finest feminine virtues with the finest masculine virtues together as a unity to make up human virtue. According to Gilman, fo r a society to be virtuous, it should use her fictional utopian society of Herland as an exemplary model. She believed that women have no reason to be slaves to their fellow humans by dedicating their lives to please them when they can survive on their own without the men and even lead better lives. Through the eyes of Gilman, our narrator, we get the view point of the men. She uses three men to show us their perspective about women. Gilman reverses the typical women stereotypes completely and that everything that was previously considered in terms of masculine or feminine standards was done away with. Here women wore cloths that were lesser provocative and that advocated for convenience and comfort. They cut their hair short and had more muscular bodies. They were neither flirtatious nor shy. They practically needed no men to live. They schooled, built, did farming and moreover mothered hence depended on no one but themselves. The women of Herland did not recognize gender biases, a raging phenomenon in the world. They lived in harmony and togetherness (Allen 102). Gilman as well uses Jeff to stand for a feminist voice and uses Terry to stand for the male’s voice. Jeff felt like women were creatures that deserved to be protected as well as served whereas Terry regarded them as creatures to be conquered and by all means be won. She provides a complementary view on the women as well as their roles at her time. She displays her admiration on the fact that women are independent of men. Gilman proceeds to promote the equality of women to men but she doesn’t stop there, she also portrays them as being superior compared to men. This is so unlikely in the world where Jeff and the other men came from. Here they are presented as the weaker ones and the women are much strong and virtuous. The narrator conveys the women to be smarter and kinder unlike the men. Smart in that although they are isolated from the rest they still survive. They also teach men like any other student. They bred-out and did away with segments of nature that stained their society in any way for instance dogs and some butterfly species. In addition they also bred-out defiant or less