Product Description
On Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s utopian novel Herland
How does human nature, and specifically moral psychology, vary by sex? Charlotte Perkins Gilman claims that when philosophers have described human nature as violent and selfish, they have in mind solely male nature. Females, left to themselves in an isolated society, would be supremely peaceful, rational, and cooperative.
Carol Gilligan says accounts of “normal” moral development have not taken into account observations of women: instead of judging women my male standards and finding them wanting, she hypothesized a trajectory specific to women that acknowledged their emphasis on concrete care as opposed to abstract moral principles. Read more about the topic.
Listen to the episode preview. Become a PEL Citizen and get your free copy here. You can also purchase this episode through the iTunes store. Read more about our vintage episodes.
Running Time: 1 hr., 35 min. Recorded: July 24, 2011. Participants: Mark, Seth, Dylan, Azzurra Crispino
As a bonus, your purchase includes a high-bitrate mp3 of the song that concludes the episode, “Mother’s Day,” by Mark Linsenmayer (2007).
Sandra –
In making my way through the entire run of PEL episodes, thus far this is the only episode I have been disappointed with. It seemed like everyone held back more than usual on the ideas at hand, perhaps because they had to do with feminism, and as a result the episode largely consisted of what seemed to me less like philosophy and more like dreaming up speculative Utopian ideals (not just with the novel, but also with Azzurra’s comments about the patriarchy being chief executor of every human emotion and action she did not like.) The end result would seem to contribute to the notion that feminism belongs more to the realm of cult-like pseudo-sciences and less related to anything even verging on philosophy.