Charlotte P erkins G ilman

1. Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The labor of women in the house, certainly, enables men to produce more than they otherwise could; and in this way women are economic factors in society. But so are horses.” (Women and Economics, 1898)

2. American intellectual & sociologist • Attended Rhode Island School of Design • Mostly self-taught sociologist, mentored by father • College lecturer, published in academic journals • Early feminist & Fabian socialist • Saw traditional nuclear family as insular & dysfunctional, preferred cooperative arrangements • Criticized for “giving away” husband & child to another women after divorcing first husband • Best known for “The Yellow Wallpaper,” semiautobiographical account of post-partum depression made worse by the “rest cure” • A right-to-die advocate, committed suicide after breast-cancer diagnosis • She "chose chloroform over cancer," as her autobiography and suicide note stated Charlotte Perkins Gilman(1860-1935)

3. Gender inequality • Gender inequality: economic & political disparities due to gender • economic: disparities in wealth and/or income • political: disparities in legal rights • What is the nature of inequality b/w men & women? • Where do we find it, how do we measure it? • Variation across history and cultures? • What are the sources or causes of gender inequality? • Nature vs. Nurture • How can gender inequality be challenged, reduced? • How does gender inequality compare with other kinds of inequality?

4. Joan, head of the secretary pool has advice for the “new girl,” Peggy: “In a couple years, with the right moves, you’ll be in the city with the rest of us. Of course, if you really make the right moves, you’ll be out in the country and you won’t be going to work at all.” And on the “boss man”: “He may act like he wants a secretary, but most of the time they’re looking for something between a mother and a waitress.” The drama series, ‘Mad Men,’ explores how different women – ‘career gals,’ ‘trophy wives,’ etc. – negotiate the changing gender norms of the ‘turbulent 60s’

5. Key influences Marxism the economic and political basis of gender inequality Symbolic interactionism  how gender differences are reinforced and institutionalized through the process of socialization Social Darwinism/sociobiology  evolutionary advantages or roots of gender differences

6. Inequality in the division of labor • DoL in traditional family (breadwinner husband/stay@home wife) promotes women’s economic dependence on men • Traditional family structure inherently exploitative b/c women’s economic compensation – “wages” – are not based on her labor • Women’s economic standing and social status comes from her husband • Thus her labor belongs to her husband

7. Differential gender socialization • socialization: how individuals learn to interact or behave in “society” • gender socialization: how individuals learn to observe gender norms, to behave in “gender-appropriate” ways, relative to a given culture • focuses on shared symbolic codes and norms organized on the principle of gender • innate biological differences alone can’t account for the observed differences between men and women in behavior and appearance • “…They must be dressed differently, not on account of their personal needs, which are exactly similar at this period, but so that neither they nor anyone beholding them, may for a moment, forget the distinction of sex.” (225) differential gender socializationpromotes and sustains gender inequality

8. Gender socialization today • Recent research emphasizes the dynamic quality of gender socialization, seeing it as “ongoing, multi-level processes of social expectations, control, and struggle that sustain and subvert gender systems” (Ferree & Hall) • In this conceptualization, gender is not a characteristic of individuals but of societies • Multiple institutions are involved in gender socialization: school, family, peers, workplace, mass media, and new communication technologies • Socialization process is both dynamic and subject to change • Schools teach and reinforce cultural expectations for males and females, yet they may also challenge and reshape them

9. Social Darwinism • Leave it to the laws of nature, evolution • Women & men have different biological “principles” •  biological determinism

10. The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)

11. Conclusions • Social bonds are essential to mental health • Reaffirming Durkheim’s insights • Women in patriarchal society face Authority of “The Man” and of “The Doctor,” both of whom claim they know what’s best for her

12. Women and Economics (1898)

13. Women and Economics • “To show how some of the worst evils under which we suffer, evils long supposed to be inherent and ineradicable in our natures, are but the result of certain arbitrary conditions of our own adoption, and how, by removing those conditions, we may remove the evil resultant” • “social environment is of enormous force as a modifier of human life” (245) • “Economic necessities are most marked in their influence” • “…an entire sex lives in a relation of economic dependence upon the other sex, and the economic relation is combined with the sex-relation” (246)

15. Traditional DoL results in women’s economic dependence • Traditional division of labor is rooted in patriarchy • patriarchy: system of rule or social organization in which authority rests with men and is associated with masculine gender norms • fathers hold authority over women, children, and property • implies institutions of male privilege and female subordination • property and title are inherited by the male lineage (patrilineal) • It promotes women’s economic dependence and undermines freedom • Women’s economic position and social status come from her husband, not her own labor • Women’s labor is treated as the property of the male

16. Women are “oversexed” Women are not “underdeveloped men, but the feminine half of humanity in undeveloped form” Too much emphasis on “sex distinction”: “it is in women we find most fully expressed the excessive sex-distinction of the human species – physical, psychical, social”  unnatural, “unproductive” differentiation Ophelia's Gaze on the Second Life of Mad Men: artilleri's Retro Decor for the Discerning Virtual Housekeeper

17. Are her assumptions about gender ethnocentric? • Gilman: “With the other species, the males compete in ornament, and the females select. With us, the females compete in ornament, and the males select.” • Always true? Was/is the “feminine” always the more “ornamental”? Was/is this the norm across all cultures? • ethnocentrism: judging the values and norms of other cultures on the basis of one’s own culture • equating one’s own set of values and norms with what’s “normal” • “normalizing” a culturally specific set of values and norms

19. "The Wealth Gap" – Gender & Racial Income: "We're used to thinking about how well people are doing economically in terms of income, which technically is the flow of money that comes into a household over a period of time. This usually consists of salary or wages." Wealth: net worth, or the value of your assets minus your debts Assets includes things like money that's held in checking or savings accounts, real estate, retirement assets, stocks or bonds Debt includes mortgage debt, credit card debt, and other types of loans So wealth is determined by how much money you have in assets, subtracting what you owe in debts

20. How does the gender wealth gap intersect with the racial wealth gap? • Mariko Chang, Insight Ctr (author, Short-Changed: Why Women Have Less Wealth and What Can Be Done About It) finds: • Situation of women of color is not the same as for men of color or situation of white women • Women of color experience a compounding negative wealth effect of being both a person of color and a woman

21. Wealth inequality is much, much greater than income inequality • In 2004, the top 1% of the population earned 17% of the total income but owned 34% of the total wealth • The bottom 60% of the population earned 22% of the income but had only 4% of the total wealth

22. wealth has a lot more advantages that income doesn't have • Wealth can be used as collateral for loans • It can generate further income in the form of dividends or rent • It can be passed down from generation to generation – and this is one of the primary reasons why we see such a tremendous racial wealth gap • Wealth is critical for helping people weather financial crises such as the one we're having currently, when people's jobs are cut or disrupted, in medical emergencies

23. Report finds evidence of a gender wealth gap and racial wealth gap: • The median wealth of single black women in the US is $100 and for the typical single Hispanic women it's $120 • But women of color have only a penny of wealth for every dollar of wealth owned by their same-race male counterparts, and only a fraction of a penny of wealth owned by white women • Not only are these figures low in terms of the absolute dollar amount but they are also extremely low when you compare it to the typical wealth of men of color or of white women • "For every dollar of wealth held by white families, families of color have just 16 cents. It's the racial wealth gap and it could be even more important to economic disparities between communities than differences in wages or education."

24. Why would wealth of black women be less than wealth of black men? • "This is one of the more shocking findings, especially for blacks because black women now are more likely to graduate from college than black men. And in many instances they seem to be doing better than black men on many measures.” • Wealth is created not just through income • To create wealth, you need to be tapping into something termed the wealth escalator • These are things that translate income into wealth more quickly • Women of color are less likely to have access to it • "Now even though women of color might be out-earning men of color in terms of college degrees, they're still less likely to be in the types of jobs that have access to fringe benefits. They are more likely to work in service occupations, and service occupations are the least likely to have fringe benefits.“ (Chang)

25. wealth escalatorhas three components: • Fringe benefits (stock options, pensions, 401Ks, paid sick days, etc) • Fringe benefits are things that you would receive as an employee in addition to your regular pay; they help you hold onto wealth or build more wealth • Tax code • Tax code helps people build wealth – or prevents people from building wealth – based on the types of taxes that people pay and the types of tax deductions they're qualified for • Structure of government benefits • Structure of government benefits like Social Security