Herland (1915)

AUTHOR: Gilman, Charlotte Perkins

KEYWORDS: food, animals, suffrage and women's rights, dress reform, slavery, environmentalism, class and poverty

SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo):

The women of Herland do not keep animals for food because they reserve the land for growing food (nuts, fruits, cereals); birds live in Herland and they keep cats (very selectively bred cats, which do not hunt birds) to restrict the population of mice. The women of Herland do not eat meat; they are shocked and sickened by accounts of the US meat industry and, in their veneration of motherhood, are scandalized by the commodification of bovine maternity by the (milk) dairy industry. The men (especially Jeff, the botanist) are amazed at the intelligent way in which the women cultivate the land for food production and create aesthetically pleasing environments at the same time. Slavery is indirectly referenced: the society that preceeded Herland is said to have kept slaves and the slave women were eventually brought into the new community. As the patriarchal US culture of the men is brought into relation with the exclusively feminine culture of Herland, interesting comparative discussions arise that contrast the utopia of Herland with male-female relations in the contemporary United States, masculine and feminine versus "human" traits, relations between the sexes, education, population control (the women practise parthenogenesis), architecture and town planning, class relations, and land use.