Avery Balli ENGL 2400 Final Essay -- “It Should Have Been Her” They never disputed our absolute statements, only made notes of them. --Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Chapter 7 Women in science fiction—fromFrankenstein’s Elizabeth Lavenza toWar of the Worlds’s unnamed female characters—have traditionally existed solely for the purpose of bringing an emotional balance to their male counterparts. They can often be found screaming while men work to find logical responses to situations, paying for mad scientists’ acts of hubris with their lives, or, if they are lucky, being used as a window for other characters to mansplain the world’s more complicated aspects to audience. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’sHerlandturns all that on its head. The male characters—Van, Jeff, and Terry—are the innocent childlike figures who don’t understand how the world works, each with a little boy’s imagination refined into a man’s delusion. They set off in search of Herland with plans that seem to be based on both Manifest Destiny and classic fairytales, plans of righteously conquering the foreign land. They each have flawed ideals of what a country of women will be like, Terry especially outdoing it with his fantasy of taking over a kingdom to win the submissive princesses. Adi Jaffe Ph. D., author and scholar of psychology, observes the effects of men being left alone with flawed ideas of how they should express their sexualities in his studies, even admitting that
toxic masculinity had played a role in his own life. “We equip boys with no tools and a complete misunderstanding of romantic relationshipsand intimacy, leaving them to rely on ancient standards, fantasy-based edutainment, and misinformed perspectives to handle the world.” Toxic masculinity has existed all throughout history, giving men an unattainable image of an “alpha male” they feel they must become. Pursuit of this image leads to untreated psychological issues, which can result in aggressive behavior and outbursts, especially when one feels one’s masculinity is challenged. This is exhibited in Herland with Terry’s behavior. Toxic masculinity gives Terry the delusion of superiority, and he grows frustrated when the women do not revere him the way he feels his ought to be regarded. Meanwhile, most of the female characters inHerlandare coolly logical, serving to enlighten the men about Herland’s way of life. Whenever there is a difference between the men and their
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