-Herland

A socialist and feminist, Gilman is best known for her semi-autobiographical work The Yellow Wall-paper and Women and Economics, in which she argued that the independence of women would be beneficial to society and advocated reforms to accomplish such freedoms. In Herland, Gilman imagines an isolated country surrounded by mountains and cliffs where millions of women live without men. The women in Herland are able to reproduce parthenogenetically, all descending from a single mother. The land of Herland is expertly cultivated and maintained. The women all have short hair and wear practical clothing that suits the work they do. The inhabitants worship a Mother Goddess and revere motherhood, valuing children and their education above all else. Herland is ruled communally with few laws and no crime. Gilman uses her feminist utopia to demonstrate the flexibility of gender roles and the value that should be placed on the education of children. This work also reveals Gilman’s racism in her support of eugenics and belief in certain races being savages.