1. The sociopolitical views of Thorstein Veblen and Charlotte Perkins Gilman offer insight into those aspects of a prevailing culture that affect those who seek to understand, influence, be a part of, or profit from its mainstream. The issues of women's rights, evolution, work, and society present points on which their attitudes emerge most strongly. Their focus of criticism is chiefly on the middle classes and above, but there is a strong reformist attitude as regards improving the lot of the lower classes as well.
The question of the economic status of women provides a forum for certain philosophical differences between Veblen and Gilman, although they share a general taste for liberal progressivism and a general acceptance of the idea of social as well as physical evolution. Their views of women are directly connected to their views of evolution and of the role of work (i.e., productive labor) in society. For Veblen, the decisive factor of society is that it reflects the economic power of the highest class. In such a society, says Veblen, women are fated to struggle for something akin to equality for as long as men dominate the economic area of existence. This explains his differentiating members of the leisure class from what he terms the "inferior class," which "includes slaves and other dependence, and ordinarily also all the women" (3:2). Women of high class are not involved in "industrial occupations" (3:3) because their status as leisure dependents precludes them from the labor force. Meanwhile, those of lower classes are barred from working in those areas of industry which Veblen terms either "honourable employments," or work for gain. This is different from the women's work of (uncompensated) household drudgery inasmuch as it offers workers the opportunity to exploit and profit. Women, historically owned by men, maintain something of the status of slaves even when they are of higher birth. Their employment "takes the for...