Analysis Of Women And Economics By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Define Gilman’s terms “sex-distinction” and “sex-attraction.” Discuss how you feel (if you do) society today still overemphasizes both terms. Draw on your own experiences or a friend’s experience to give support for your argument. (pages 203-211)

In “Women and Economics,” Gilman suggest that humans are the only species in which one sex wholly depends on the other sex economically. Gilman points out that women are fully dependent on men for life’s necessities—her economic status is about her sex status. She writes, “The male human is thousands of years in advance of the female in economic status.” Gilman is suggesting further that a woman then can only earn her share or place through the man. If this line of thinking is undoubtedly true, then in a marriage situation, it forces the woman to work for the man if she is planning to gain any economic strength or marrying can create an equal partnership whereby both the man and woman can support their family. Unfortunately, the latter becomes more difficult for the woman, as she traditionally does not work outside the home. Moreover, if the woman is working for the man, then she is only entitled to the wages of a servant or housekeeper but there would never be a rich woman this way.

Gilman goes on to

Du Bois wrote the Souls of Black Folks in 1903. The book exposed the material causes of racism at the time and explained the effects on black identity. Du Bois wanted to show his readers the strange meaning of being black. He believed at the dawn of the 20th Century that the laws and the society that had prevented blacks from achieving equality in a post-slavery era would continue to pose a problem for black identity. Du Bois argued that this relationship was essentially one of domination, exploitation and “narrow opportunity” for the development and progress of people of color. Sadly it was the color line that maintained the best jobs in the country for white people while denying jobs for people of