ood repute from all effectual work" (3:357). This recognition, together with ambitions to enter the mainstream "marks a reversion to a more generic type of human character, or to a less [man woman] differentiated expression of human nature" (3:361). The battle, in Veblen's view, is on.
Gilman's view of women's place in society is not wholly economic in nature, inasmuch she places women's principal role in domestic life. Yet she also suggests that women ought to have the option of entering the traditionally male controlled world, to the extent that that world is in need of the benefits that as it were a "woman's touch" might specifically provide. Thus it is that Gilman observes "the unique position of the human female as an economic dependant on the male of her species" (2:58), which is carried into the social realm as well inasmuch as women are restricted in their social options. "To the young woman confronting life there is the same world beyond [as young men face] . . . the same human energies and human desires and ambitions within. But all th
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