Woman & womanhood : a search for principles / by C.W. Saleeby.

  • Caleb Saleeby
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Woman & womanhood : a search for principles / by C.W. Saleeby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    339/416 (page 327)
    CHAPTER XX WOMEN AND ECONOMICS It will be evident that the writer of the foregoing chapter must have something to say on the question of women and economics, but though what must be said seems to me to be very important, it can be stated at no great length. If we turn to the most widely-read and applauded of the feminist books on this subject, Women and Economics, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, we are by no means encouraged to find it stated in the first chapter that woman’s present economic inferiority to man is not due to “ any inherent disability of sex.” Wherever Mrs. Gilman may be right, here the biolo- gist knows that she is wrong. The argument has been fully stated in earlier pages, and need not here be re- stated. But we shall not be surprised if a premise which denies any natural economic disadvantage of women leads to more than dubious conclusions. Only a few pages later, Mrs. Gilman refers to the argument that the economic dependence of women upon their husbands is defensible on the ground that they perform the duties of motherhood, and the fol- lowing is her comment thereon : “ The claim of motherhood as a factor in economic exchange is false to-day. But suppose it were true. Are we willing