What if we were all women?
That’s a question many had after Trump’s recent “Defending Women” executive order, which attempts to legitimize transphobia by giving a biologically incorrect definition of sex as something determined at “conception.”
Online, many speculated that this order ironically declared all Americans to be women, since past research has popularized the claim that fetuses start as female by default. Recent research shows that it would be more accurate to describe embryos as nonbinary at conception, so the executive order could actually be creating a completely nonbinary United States, which is also pretty funny.
But the question of what would happen if we were all women has been asked before, by American feminist and eugenicist author Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Her most well-known work is the wonderfully horrifying “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which depicts a woman’s descent into madness as a result of postpartum depression, the patriarchy and some particularly ugly (and yellow) wallpaper.
I most recently read it for my Intro to Close Reading class last semester, but I first read Perkins Gilman’s feminist stories when I was 10. Perusing my sister’s copy of “The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories,” the book quickly became one of my favorites.
So when discussing famed sex offender Trump’s ridiculous “Defending Women” order with my sister, who works as a government employee (though not for much longer), my memory of Perkins Gilman’s canon was jogged.
I decided to read her 1915 utopian novel “Herland,” about the titular land: a utopia populated solely by asexually reproducing women.
In “Herland,” after various wars had diminished the male population and a landslide isolated the remaining women, the future of the population was saved when one woman was discovered to have the ability to have children asexually.
The novel is from the perspective of three clueless American male explorers. When they stumble upon “Herland,” the area is populated by that first woman’s descendants, who have inherited her ability to reproduce asexually and who have developed Herland into a utopia.
Through their stay in Herland, the explorers eventually realize that the efficient, sexless and motherly society of Herland is far superior to American patriarchy.
This realization is by no means instant; like the American conservatives of today, they are constantly frustrated that there is “nothing to defend [the women] from or protect them against,” no way to assert the authority the male explorers believe is inherent to them.
The male explorers continuously struggle to figure out what a woman is when not considered in the context of a man, and in the process, the men also struggle with their own gender identity.
Though the novel does explore how the gender binary is harmful to all involved, “Herland” is also shrouded in controversy; Perkins Gilman was a famous proponent of eugenics.
This utopia of women is, more specifically, a utopia of white women. These are women “of Aryan stock,” as stated in the novel, whose progenitors immigrated from Europe, and they now dwell on a mountaintop quite literally high above a rainforest filled with “savages.”
Perkins Gilman’s choice of creating a utopia of white women is an example of how American ideas of femininity, and even American feminism, are Eurocentric.
“Now more than ever, your feminist views, liberal views, democratic views –– whatever you call your beliefs –– must include advocating for trans rights.”
The widespread belief that there is only one type of woman, and therefore femininity, makes trans people and especially trans women much more likely to experience discrimination and violence than their cisgender counterparts.
In Herland, the problem is preventing certain undesirable women from reproducing. Only some are permitted to produce one clone/child, and only a select few (called “Over Mothers”) can produce multiple clones.
Those who are bad and deemed unworthy aren’t allowed to reproduce; eugenics is what has gradually led Herland to a population of perfection.
But who gets to decide who’s bad? How is it decided? There is no clarity as to how superiority is determined.
While I obviously do not condone Perkins Gilman’s eugenics schemes, I do think her method of exploring feminist ideas through popular media forms, like the utopian novel, is something worth doing in today’s political climate.
Additionally, in light of current events, where the rights of trans people and especially trans women are being targeted by the current administration in the name of “defending women” and “protecting American values,” we need to look critically at the weaponization of womanhood.
Now more than ever, your feminist views, liberal views, democratic views –– whatever you call your beliefs –– must include advocating for trans rights.
Because when politicians question who deserves to be a woman, what they are really questioning is who deserves to be treated as human. And that’s not just a dangerous question to ask: It is a dangerous question that is now being answered.
Vivian Fan PO ’28 is a book columnist from Memphis, Tennessee.
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