Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Optimist Reformer

Kitchenless Houses and Homes Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Reform of Architectural Space

y v o n n e g a u d e l i u s Kitchenless Houses and Homes Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Reform of Architectural Space In the second half of the nineteenth century, many feminists devoted a great deal of attention to architecture, the divisions of space, and the intersections of space and gender. These feminists raised fundamental questions about what was called the private, or woman’s, sphere and the relationship of the private sphere to the constructed architectural spaces that supported and helped create the private and public spheres. As Dolores Hayden writes, ‘‘They challenged two characteristics of industrial capitalism: the physical separation of household space from public space, and the economic separation of the domestic economy from the political economy.’’1 As Polly Wynn Allen states, these feminists, both male and female, ‘‘became convinced that a collectively revised architecture would be crucial to the social empowerment of women.’’2 They further believed that ‘‘the exploitation of women’s domestic labor was central to the perpetuation of sexual inequality. They consistently proposed material solutions involving both economic and spatial change’’ (20). Of particular interest in these visions for architectural reform is the understanding that in calling for changes such as collective child care and collective housework, material feminists recognized the need to break down the isolation incurred through the gendered separation of public and private sphere. They sought to bring what were traditionally considered female activities into what was traditionally considered the male public sphere. Among the many ways that Charlotte Perkins Gilman might be described, one is as a material feminist. In her writings she proposed a radical revision to our approaches to the architectural spaces of our daily lives as they both create and are created by ideologies of gender. Calling for collectives to provide services such as housecleaning, meals, and child care, Gilman suggested the design and creation of such spaces as the kitchenless house: a house in which neither women or men would be required to labor incessantly in order to produce a home. She argued that without such far-reaching changes the evolution of society would grind to a halt because women would forever be trapped in a space that forced them to remain without access to the public sphere and its attendant privileges. Some of the earlier rethinkings of the domestic architectural spaces within the home established women more firmly in the private domestic sphere. For example, writers such as Catherine Beecher, Gilman’s great-aunt, proposed a model for a home that was ‘‘above all a space for woman’s domestic labor in the service of men and children.’’3 The goal of projects such as Beecher’s was to give women control over the private, domestic spaces of the home. Beecher believed that such control was necessary if women were to gain equal footing with the control that men had in the public sphere. While Beecher recognized that such a position did not give women access to the public sphere, she believed that women should follow this course of action for the good of society. While they might not gain power through such a strategy, they would gain their reward in heaven. In marked contrast to this Gilman understood the need to liberate women from the confining domestic spaces of the home; it is her vision of women who are free from these constraints, and the implications that this carries for the evolution of society, that gives her work its compelling force as an analysis of architectural space. As Polly Wynn Allen states, ‘‘more than anything else, she wanted to liberate women from solitary, burdensome housework. To that end she urged women to pursue as many strategies as they could think of appropriate to the particular location and circumstances’’ (Building, 163). Gilman’s strategies included a separation between women and the domestic sphere and, more completely, a removal of the duties traditionally associated with the domestic sphere from the house. 112 Women, Work, and the Home It is obvious that the problem of architecture and its relationship to gender is not a new one. In their most optimistic accounts, authors such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Marie Howland, and Jane Addams predicted that by the end of the twentieth century the problems surrounding the inequities of architectural space and its dependent gender ideologies would very likely be solved.4 However, in the writings of our own contemporary feminist architects and theorists we find many of the same...