Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social EvolutionGilman, Charlotte Perkins
General
Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
Women -- Economic conditions; Women -- Employment; Women -- Social and moral questions
The original necessity for this distinctive human phenomenon lies very
deep among the primal forces of social life. The relations required to
develope individual organisms failed in the further development of the
social organism of organization. Co-ordination requires first a common
interest, and then the establishment of a common consciousness. It was
for the common interest of the individual cells to obtain food easily,
and this drew them into closer relation. That relation being
established, their co-existence became a unit, an entity, a thing with a
conscious life of its own. In the fullest development of the most
elaborate organisms, this holds good. There must be a common interest to
be served by all this co-ordinate activity; and there must be a common
consciousness established, whereby to serve most easily the common
interest. When the component cells in our tissues shrink and fail for
lack of nutrition, when the several organs weary of inaction and
fretfully demand their natural exercise, the man does not say, “My
tissues need replenishment” or “My organs need exercise”: he says, “I am
hungry.” And that “I,” the personal consciousness directing the smooth
interaction of all its parts, goes to work to get food. Social evolution
rests on this common interest. Individual men are profited by social
relation; and, therefore, they enter into social relation. Such relation
requires a common consciousness, through which the co-ordinate action
may take place; and the whole course of social development is marked by
the constant extension of this social consciousness and its necessary
vehicles. Language is our largest common medium, and leads on into
literature, which is but preserved speech. The brain of man is the
social organ, the organ of communication. Through it flows the current
of thought, whereby we are enabled to work together. By so much as our
brains hold in common, we can understand each other; and, therefore,
some degree of common education is essential to free social development.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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