A Reply to “Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Reassessing Her Significance for Feminism and Social Economics”

Abstract

Abstract Sheth and Prasch point out the macroeconomic sociological aspects of the work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. They contend that Gilman's focus was on the creation of a new social structure.

Gilman did, in fact, look to a new and different social arrangement. However, her new society was built on a change in the microeconomic relationships which women had to face in their personal and professional lives. Only after the changes had occurred at the level of the individual could societal changes be put into place.

To reference Gilman's thinking along these lines, it is necessary to observe her early writings in which she describes the motivation behind her desire to construct a different social order. Sheth and Prasch have overlooked these early writings and have been led to conclude that Gilman's focus was strictly from a macroeconomic perspective.

Keywords:

• History of economic ideas
• social thought
• Gilman