Women and Economics
Many both in the past and the present have challenged the treatment of women by society over the past century or so. In Western culture, the placement of women on a lower level than men has been around for as long as can be remembered. Never has the woman been thought of as the "breadwinner" of the family. It took the determination of women in the past just to get women into the workplace. Still today, women earn less money and hold less substantial job titles. But because of these women from the past, society has taken a different view. Women such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman have paved the way for women in economics. Her revolutionary view of women in and out of the household is unprecedented. Though written almost a hundred years ago, the same cruelties and injustices Gilman described and attacked in Women and Economics are still very much alive today. The beliefs she put forth in her book are the basis for the amount of independence women have experienced in the present. In Women and Economics, Gilman began with the premise that women are "owned" by men. Women could not choose to work out of the house - they were forced to stay with the children. The man of the house would be at work bringing in the money while
the woman would stay at home to care for the children and to do things such as housework and cooking. A woman could not choose otherwise because the man supported her. In this way, the woman was "owned" by the man. Arguing from the point of evolutionary science, Gilman illustrated how humans "are the only animal species in which the female depends upon the male for food, the only animal in which the sex-relation is also an economic relation." Here she examined the "cultures" of other animals. She understood that women are the only species that depends on the male for food. All others partake in food gathering equally. The female is not dependent upon the male unlike the situation in our "highly evolved" society. Women's economic dependence on men resulted in their being "denied the enlarged activities which have developed intelligence in man, denied the education of the will which only comes by freedom and power." The liberation of women thus required education and the opportunity to use their studies to establish social as well as economic independence. If women could be educated at the level that men were, there would be more of a market for them outside of the household. In Gilman's time, a woman did not even receive a college degree after finishing the necessary requirements for one. If a woman could receive the level of education a man could, she would be more likely to support herself without a man. Women and Economics denounces women's financial dependence on men and supports day-care programs and cooperative kitchens. Gilman believed that men and women should share the responsibility of housework - a radical notion at the time. She also believed that women should be encouraged, from a very early age, to be independent and to work for themselves. Women were often "trapped" in the household, whether or not they were good at raising children, cleaning, or cooking. Gilman believed these women should be allowed to explore different options outside of the household that they could succeed
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Approximate Word count = 1368
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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