Reviews with content warning for Abortion - Herland

The first book I chose to read was Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She first published it in a
journal she wrote as well as edited called The Forerunner in 1915. It is a fiction novel but is a
result of the author's feminist beliefs. It seemed interesting to read what would be a feminist
utopia from a 1915 perspective.
Herland introduces us to Terry O. Nicholson, Jeff Margrave and Vandyck Jennings; their
adventures are told from the latter's perspective. While on "a big scientific expedition", they hear
rumours about the existence of a region entirely populated by women. They decide to go on a
secret quest to discover it in hopes of being known as the first to breach this isolated territory that
even native had never seen. It goes on to their time there, the mutual learning of both cultures
and all the happenings that ensue. There is an extensive emphasis on comparing the three
men's culture (1910s USA) to the women's.
Going into the book, one might expect much feminist rhetoric, considering it is "a feminist utopia."
However, it can strongly be argued that this book is in no way feminist. The fact that the main
characters are all men and are repeatedly comparing women to animals does not even start to
brush why this book is quite sexist. Let's dive in. The women of this world (the three most
important being Celis, Alima and Ellador -who end up being love interests which does not scream
feminism but that is not even why this book is not feminist) are implied continuously to be better
than the men (and the women of "our" world); therefore it is fair to assume that the values
assigned to them are what the author defends. So what are the values of these women? The first
and foremost is Motherhood. Their whole civilisation and survival are based on it.
"These women, whose essential distinction of motherhood was the dominant note of their
whole culture, were strikingly deficient in what we call "femininity.""
"By motherhood they were born and by motherhood they lived—life was, to them, just the
long cycle of motherhood."
Basing women's worth on their ability to produce children (here through parthenogenesis aka
asexual reproduction) is not only reductive to fertile cis women, but it is also ableist and
transphobic. Speaking of ableism, the undertones of eugenics are incredibly disturbing.
"We have, of course, made it our first business to train out, to breed out, when possible,
the lowest types."
Generally, this book and therefore, the author seem to have a very narrow vision of feminism. It
is feminism only made for rich, straight, cis, non-disabled women: it completely ignores
intersectionality. What can almost be amusing is the apparent tinge of feminist separatism which
is often associated with radical feminism and lesbian feminism/separatism (the idea that the way
to fight patriarchy is to separate women from men) is quite contradictory with the complete
absence of sexuality or any individual desire expressed by the women. Those women's life
revolves entirely and uniquely around children, Motherhood and maintaining the catharsis they

created. It sounds ludicrous that a country of millions of women would not have "the faintest idea
of love—sex-love, that is." as if homosexuality was not even a thing. It also sounds quite sexist,
implying that women cannot know/understand desire, pleasure or love without a man there to
show them. To continue with the values defended in this book, the discourse around abortion
was appalling.
"None of us wanted these women to think that OUR women, of whom we boasted so
proudly, were in any way inferior to them. I am ashamed to say that I equivocated. I told
her of certain criminal types of women—perverts, or crazy, who had been known to
commit infanticide."
This disgusting portrayal of women choosing to terminate a pregnancy was one of the most
infuriating things in this book. Since the women of Herland keep being presented as being "right",
their strong opposition to abortion and the awful ways they talk about women who would choose
to is just terrible. The times were different, which has to be acknowledged, but it does not mean
we cannot bring up modern criticism.
Besides, let's bring up the idea of putting down feminity. These women were described as better
than America's women because they were not feminine; they were as strong as men and did not
care about beauty. There was a time where the idea of a strong woman was a female man, but
these days, feminism seems to have moved on to accepting that feminity is not a bad thing, that
not being a man is not a bad thing. The fact that superior women are so because they resemble
men is not great. Sure, gender roles are terrible but being feminine is not inherently wrong, in
women or men.
There are so many more instances of dreadful connotations and disquisitions. The fact that this
is presented as a utopia in any way is ridiculous, and to pretend this book is feminist is not
accurate. It would not even be coherent with the more conservative current feminism
movements.
I have to say I was quite excited about going into this book. I am very interested in the history of
feminism. Nevertheless, this was incredibly disappointing and irritating. The plot was not even
interesting enough to distract me from the underlining message. There were a few moments
where I did get into the story, where I was interested to hear more about Herland's society.
Likewise, I did enjoy the idea of imagining the reaction of outsiders on "our" (America's) ways of
living. Still, truly the themes of the book ruined any possibility of enjoyment for me.

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