Abstract
Charlotte Perkins Gilman considered herself a social scientist and a feminist theorist. In Gilman’s eyes, doing social science and doing feminist theory were not two separate enterprises, they were one. But modern historians have dismissed her claim to being a social scientist and have resurrected her solely as an important feminist from the past. There are at least two reasons for this dismissal. First, the social evolutionary theory on which Gilman based her claims for social reform was discarded long ago by social scientists because of its neo-Lamarckian reasoning. Secondly, since her feminism was an essential part of Gilman’s scientific argument, her social theory seems to be discounted on this basis alone. In other words, feminism, since it is a form of moral reasoning, has no place in social scientific research. Although historians of science are now engaged in assessing theories in the context of their time, no real consideration has been given to the role of moral reasoning in social scientific research. This is particularly important for those engaged in trying to reconstruct what a feminist social science might be.
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Notes
Judith Nies, Seven Women: Portraits from the American Radical Tradition (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 127).
William O’Neill, Everyone Was Brave: A History of Feminism in America (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1971), p. 130.
O’Neill, p. 39.
Carl N. Degler, ‘Charlotte Perkins Gilman on the Theory and Practice of Feminism,’ American Quarterly 8 (1956), 21–39 and his Introduction to Women and Economics (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966 [1898]), pp. vi-xxxv.
Degler, Introduction, pp. xxix-xxx. Italics mine.
Degler, Introduction, p. xxix.
Degler, Introduction, pp. xxx-xxxi.
George W. Stocking, Jr., Race, Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology (New York: The Free Press, 1968), p. 114.
See J. W. Burrows, Evolution and Society: A Study of Victorian Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966).
Henry Steele Commager, ed., Lester Ward and the Welfare State (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967), p. 70.
Commager, p. 75.
Commager, p. 79.
Commager, p. 84.
Lester Ward, Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I (New York: Appleton, 1883), p. 69. Italics mine.
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (New York: Modern Library, n.d.), p. 568.
Darwin, p. 572.
Darwin, p. 901.
Darwin, p. 901.
While Stephen Gould suggests in Ever Since Darwin (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976) that Darwin’s version of evolution, “descent with modification,” eschews any notion of “higher” and “lower,” (Gould, p. 36) Darwin clearly violates his own recommendation with respect to the evolution of the sexes. The superior intelligence of the male does not mean here “better adapted” but some more ordinary social sense of superior. “The chief distinction in the intellectual powers is shown by man’s “attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up. than can woman — whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hand.” (Darwin, p. 873).
Darwin, p. 901.
Lester Ward, Pure Sociology (New York: Macmillan, 1903), p. 940.
Ward, Pure Sociology, p. 372.
Darwin, p. 568. The principle of atrophy, Darwin suggests, applies to all animals.
For an account of the extent and depth of neo-Lamarckian thought see Edward J. Pfeifer, ‘The Genesis of American Neo-Lamarckianism’ in Isis 56 (1965), 156–167.
Darwin, p. 874.
See Pfeifer.
E. B. Tylor was the first to use the concept of “culture” in 1871. Stocking suggests, however, that Tylor’s usage has only the vaguest resemblance to the modern pluralistic concept and there is little sense of the notion of cultural transmission.
See especially Stocking’s essay ‘Lamarckianism in American Social Science 1890–1915,’ pp. 234-270. See note 8.
See Pfeifer.
Darwin, p. 919. The role of the transmission of acquired habits is not at all clear in Darwin’s writings. He did think it played some role in human evolution.
Stocking, p. 268.
See Stocking’s essay ‘Franz Boas and the Culture Concept in Historical Perspective,’ pp. 195-234.
Pfeifer gives an account of the uniformitarianism vs. catastrophy theories in the light of neo-Lamarckianism.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Forerunner 1, No. 12 (1910), p. 26.
Gilman, Human Work (New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1904), p. 65.
Human Work, p. 187.
Human Work, pp. 187-8.
Human Work, p. 195.
Human Work, pp. 285-6.
Human Work, p. 257.
Women and Economics, p. 9.
Women and Economics, pp. 7, 13.
Women and Economics, p. 18.
Women and Economics, pp. 20-1.
Women and Economics, p. 23.
Women and Economics, p. 30.
Women and Economics, pp. 31-2.
Women and Economics, p. 33.
Women and Economics, p. 36.
Women and Economics, p. 37.
Women and Economics, p. 62.
Women and Economics, p. 63.
Women and Economics, pp. 69-70.
Women and Economics, p. 75.
Women and Economics, p. 98.
Women and Economics, p. 97.
Women and Economics, p. 106.
Women and Economics, p. 107.
Women and Economics, pp. 115-116.
Women and Economics, p. 143.
Contrary to O’Neill’s claim, Gilman’s feminism is saturated with her Socialism.
Gilman, His Religion and Hers (Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1976, rep. 1923), pp. 240–1.
Gilman, Concerning Children (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1900).
Concerning Children, p. 197.
Linda Gordon in Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1976) tends to lump Gilman with those who promoted a “cult of motherhood” and suggests that evolutionary arguments at this period undermined feminism. I hope this paper shows that Gilman’s version of the evolutionary arguments, at the very least, minimized such an undermining. (See Gordon’s Section Two: ‘Toward Women’s Power’).
Gilman, The Forerunner 3, No. 9 (1912), p. 249.
Gilman, Herland (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979).
Gilman, The Man-Man World or Our Androcentric Culture (New York: Charlton Co., 1911), p. 250.
Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1961), chp. 10.
Herland, p. 78. Gilman is perfectly aware of the acceptance of Weissman’s views in the scientific community and seems more willing to accept them than Ward.
Reiter, Rayna, R., Toward an Anthropology of Women (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975) and Rosaldo M. and Lamphere, L., eds., Women, Culture, and Society (Standford: Standford University Press, 1974).
Dudley Shapere, ‘The Character of Scientific Change,’ in T. Nickles, ed., Scientific Discovery, Logic, and Rationality (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1980), pp. 61–116.
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Palmeri, A. (2003). Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Forerunner of a Feminist Social Science. In: Harding, S., Hintikka, M.B. (eds) Discovering Reality. Synthese Library, vol 161. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0101-4_6
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