ABSTRACT
This chapter examines both the objections to and agreements with Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s theories by Jessie Taft and John Dewey in order to better understand the theoretical limits and contributions of earlier versions of pragmatist feminism. It highlights Gilman’s role as a catalyst in their formulations of feminist issues. In developing the philosophical issues framing the earlier debates, the chapter aims to undermine the perception sometimes voiced that feminists in the United States—in contrast to their European counterparts—somehow just muddled along in their efforts to deal with sexual discrimination and were insufficiently aware of the theoretical issues involved. Dewey’s most sustained analyses of women’s oppression are found in private correspondence with Scudder Klyce, whose sexist account he seeks to rebut. Klyce’s problem is that he generalizes from his limited experience of women’s abilities. Dewey, by contrast, says that he has met many “essentially sane women” who are “superior in concrete intelligence to almost any man” he knows.
