An Exploration of Femininity, Masculinity, and Racial Prejudices in Herland

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12253
• Date: 01 November 2018
• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Elinor Bowers

An Exploration of Femininity, Masculinity,

and Racial Prejudices in Herland

By Elinor BowErs*

ABstrAct. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) helped spearhead the

fin de siècle and early 20th-century women’s rights movement and

significantly contributed to the feminist literary genre with The Yellow

Wallpaper (1892). Despite her dedication to the women’s movement

and contributions to feminist literature, her novel Herland (1915)

features problematic undertones of racism, elitism, and masculine

degradation. Within recent years, feminism has become a term that is

synonymous with inclusivity, with a focus on intersectionality and the

rights of not only women but others who have been disenfranchised

by race, religious affiliation, sexuality, socioeconomic status, or gender

identification. Given modern feminism’s focus on diversity, the racist

undertones and focus on gender separatism in Herland places Gilman

outside the feminist literary genre, particularly as it has been defined

in recent decades.

Introduct ion

In Herland (1915), Charlotte Perkins Gilman attempts to critically

reconsider representations of hegemony by creating a “utopian” soci-

ety inhabited only by women. However, instead of fully deconstructing

social notions of gender and racial roles, Gilman’s novel perpetuates

many stereotypes, such as the belief that women are sexually ambiv-

alent and that motherhood is the most honorable role a woman can

hope to achieve. Furthermore, the narrator is a male adventurer who

“teaches” the native women of Herland—all of whom are Caucasian

despite living in South America—about the outside world. By perpet-

uating these gender and racial stereotypes, Gilman’s text can hardly

be considered a “truly feminist work in American Utopian tradition,”

at least in regards to contemporary ideas of feminism (Freibert 1983:

American Jour nal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 77, No. 5, (Novembe r, 2018).

DOI: 10 .1111/ajes.1225 3

© 2018 American Journ al of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

*Elinor Bowers is a Master’s student in Victorian Literature and Culture at the

University of York.