SOURCE: “The Intellectualism of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Evolutionary Perspectives on Race, Ethnicity, and Class,” in Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Optimist Reformer, edited by Jill Rudd and Val Gough, University of Iowa Press, 1999, pp. 16-41.

In the following essay, Ganobcsik-Williams examines Gilman's seemingly elitist approach to social issues.

As a social theorist Charlotte Perkins Gilman placed the issue of women's economic oppression at the center of her arguments for social reform. Scholarship on Gilman has not been abundant, but over the last forty years—and especially since the 1970s—critics have drawn attention to the influence of her gender-rooted economic theories both on the American feminist movement and on reformist social policy. As a feminist, I am inspired by this valuable scholarship. I have noticed, however, that while heralding Gilman's merits as a role model for feminists/social activists, critics (such as Degler, Doyle, Scharnhorst, Lane, and Ceplair) tend to...