His Religion and Hers

by Gilman, Charlotte Perkins; Kimmel, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780759103870
• ISBN10: 0759103879
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-10-24
• Publisher: AltaMira Press

Summary

This volume delves intensively into religion and the influence of gender. Gilman suggests that through the development of secular ethics, religion can be directed not to the anticipation of a mythical afterlife, but instead to the transformation of the present. She demonstrates the ways in which a male driven ideology has produced a religion focused on death, discouraging any attention to the improvement of life on earth. Here, Gilman offers new thoughts that advocate a collective change of view.

Author Biography

Dolores R. Piperno is a Senior Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama, and the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

PREFACE	ix
INTRODUCTION TO THE ALTAMIRA PRESS EDITION	xiii
I INTRODUCTORY	3	(14)
II THE TWO BEYONDS	17	(17)
Treats of a strange characteristic of most of our great religions, their passionate interest in the future life of the dead in another world, and their complete indifference to the future life of the living in this one.
III SUGGESTED CAUSES	34	(23)
A study of the conditions influencing the mind of early man and woman, with their inevitable effect on the trend of religious development, the one inducing speculation about death, the other, love and service in life.
IV SEX CHARACTERS AND RACE CHARACTERS	57	(22)
Discusses the nature and purpose of sex in relation to the main life processes, self-preservation, race-preservation, and improvement; showing the most important qualities to be those which make one species superior to another, not those which they all share.
V THE POWER AND THE PURPOSE OF WOMEN	79	(19)
Indicates the importance of the female as the original race type; her full possession of race qualities, her development of higher and higher reproductive processes; her primal duty as a female to improve the race by selection of the best male.
VI BEHAVIOR, CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS	98	(21)
Distinguishes between our acts as the result of inherited impulse and environment, and those which are induced by ideas, showing the dominance of the latter. A concept is stronger than a fact.
VII MORALS AND CONDUCT	119	(19)
Treats of the appearance of early tribal customs and taboos, their development into what we call "morals," and the powerful effect of these morals in influencing conduct, for good, evil, or foolishness
VIII ETHICS AND CONDUCT	138	(17)
Shows our limited perception of this most practical of sciences, Ethics, and how it has been obscured, neglected and controverted by religion, as well as advanced in certain lines.
IX PHILOSOPHY AND CONDUCT	155	(17)
Shows how inevitably the human mind develops some philosophy, great or small, theories of life or some part of it; and how these, like our religions, have been colored by an exclusively masculine point of view.
X RELIGION AND CONDUCT	172	(23)
Points out the strange effects of religion on our behavior, its required conduct being in some cases consonant with ethical laws, in some distinctly un-ethical, and in large measure absolutely dissociated from any service to humanity.
XI THE NATURAL BEGINNING OF AN UNNATURAL RELATION	195	(23)
This is an explanation of that inversion of the natural relation of the sexes, peculiar to our species, with no blame for either sex; and with recognition of its original advantages, long past, and of its resultant slavery.
XII TENDENCIES AND RESULTS OF HIS RELIGION	218	(17)
Shows the inevitable over-development of sex owing to the subjugation of women, its expression in greed, pride, and conflict, and man's dim recognition of these morbid impulses as evil; while religion was necessarily retarded because of exclusive masculine management.
XIII NATURAL DEVELOPMENT AND EFFECTS OF HER RELIGION	235	(17)
With full admission of the present limitations of manmade women, the essential characteristics of motherhood are followed in their influence on the thoughts and acts of humanity and its religions
XIV HIS AND HER RELIGION AND ECONOMICS	252	(20)
A study of our social evils in economics, the failure of his religions to affect them, and the natural inftuence of hers.
XV HOPE AND POWER	272
Some outline of the immediate application of a life-based religion to present conditions; of the immense difference in our attitude toward life; the removal of the heaviest burdens from the human soul; the opening of a new day.