Charlotte Perkins Gilman Analysis

An Unhealthy System: Gender Discrimination in Medicine

The traditional gender division of labor is a long-established social structure that is still seen in modern day society through social problems such as gender inequality within the workplace. In her book titled Women and Economics, Charlotte Perkins Gilman offers valuable insight on the structural, institutional basis of gender inequality. She emphasizes how gender differences are reinforced and institutionalized through the process of socialization, and goes on to describe how a male-dominated society ensures the second-class citizenship of women in her book titled The Man-Made World. This ideology of the traditional division of labor is still seen through the educational structure

Motherhood should not be seen as the loss of control of brain and body; however, modern day physician leaders distort reality by assuming that physician mothers lose power, skill, and a desire for work. Because of society’s adherence to traditional views of motherhood and an emphasis on sex distinction, women in professions such as medicine are not able to advance to higher positions, let alone be considered for

Gilman uses the metaphor of the corset to reflect the pressures on women that originate outside her by writing, “Put a corset, even a loose one, on a vigorous man or woman who never wore one, and there is intense discomfort, and a vivid consciousness thereof. The healthy muscles of the trunk resent the pressure, the action of the whole body is checked in the middle, the stomach is choked…” (Women and Economics 229). Similar to how the corset chokes the stomach, the traditional familial expectations choke women; just as the muscles of the trunk resent the external pressure, so do the women living in a culture focused on sex distinction. Gilman continues her argument by writing, “But the person habitually wearing a corset does not feel these evils…the nerves have become accustomed to these disagreeable sensations, and no longer respond to them” (Women and Economics 229). Many women practicing modern day medicine find themselves in this condition; they learn to accept and internalize the pressures put on them by professionals higher up in the field of medicine. Instead of trying to help women balance work and family life, many physician leaders convince female practitioners who wish to specialize that a choice must be made between family and career. The point of view presented by the majority