Charlotte Perkins Gilman and activist Social Darwinism

Can people decide how society develops, or do they simply have to accept the outcome of competition? That is the disagreement we need to understand before placing Charlotte Perkins Gilman within it. She is a novelist and social theorist participating in a debate about applying Darwin's ideas to society. Darwin's biological theory and the social programs people build from it are not automatically the same thing.

The first camp takes a strict view: biological evolution determines social interactions, and trying to interfere with the struggle for survival is futile. If that is how society must develop, organizing to change its direction would accomplish nothing. The second camp makes room for collective action. People can work together to improve society; progress need not require a competitive struggle in which some people succeed at others' expense.

Gilman joins that second camp. The long sentence in paragraph two can look more difficult than the idea it expresses. Natural evolution has brought human beings to a point where we can consciously help shape what happens next. We do not merely undergo change; we can help direct it. Think of people deliberately improving education or encouraging greater cooperation. Those illustrate purposeful efforts to change society, rather than waiting for change to happen to them.

Then Gilman takes another step. She does not stop at saying that we can contribute. She says we have an ethical responsibility to contribute. That distinction matters: being capable of doing something is one claim; being obligated to do it is another. Her theory is meant to affect people's choices, not just describe how the world works.

How would someone fulfill that responsibility? Through useful work. Gilman includes crafts, trades, arts, and sciences, so she is not reserving social progress for politicians or one particular profession. Find work that matters to society and makes good use of your talents. The connection is practical: people contribute what they are good at, their work benefits others, and those contributions help society develop.

The last paragraph shows why she is not satisfied with an intellectual debate. She believes human nature is plastic, meaning capable of being shaped or changed. People need not remain in the roles assigned to them. In both her fiction and her social theory, she urges women to work together to reorganize society. Notice what her writing is doing: it is a means of encouraging the very change she advocates.

One goal is to abandon gender-specific work roles. If a woman has the ability to become a doctor, excluding her because she is a woman prevents her from contributing that talent. This makes the connection to the previous paragraph concrete. Gilman also wants to abandon hierarchical relationships. That is a further proposal: changing who may hold a job and changing the ranking of roles are different things. Allowing women to become doctors would not, by itself, eliminate bosses or other positions of authority. Keep both of Gilman's aims in view without turning the author's account into an endorsement of every one of them.

The ending complicates the picture in a useful way. Gilman thinks those traditional arrangements once helped a complex society develop. She associates that earlier stage with traits she calls male: assertiveness, combat, and display. But something that helped society reach one stage need not help it advance from there. For future progress, she wants a restored balance that includes cooperation and nurturance, qualities she calls female. These are her classifications, and her claim is about what society now needs.

So the central idea is broader than a preference for certain traits. Gilman belongs to a group that thinks people can guide social evolution; she turns that ability into a responsibility and uses her writing to urge practical changes, especially in women's roles.