College of Business Administration

Seminar in Business and the Good Society

Discussion Questions for February 19, 2003:

1) Are the inhabitants of Herland human females? Males? Neither?(see following tree)

The genus-species homo sapiens is: animal--bilateria--deuterostomia--chordata--craniata--vertebrata--gnathostom ata-sarcopterygii--amniota--synapsida--therapsida--mammalia--eutheria (placental mammal)--primates--cattarhini--hominadae--homo--sapiens

2) Does Gilman stress the significance of nature or nurture in Herland? Which has more significance in: a) the development of the individuals within her good society; and b) the structure of the society as a whole?

3) Why did this book have to be written? How much progress in the opportunities, roles, and accomplishments of women in the workplace has taken place in the last 100 years?

4) Taking into account our current education system and teachers' salaries, compare the value and treatment of children in 2003 to those in Herland.

5) What specific characteristics of the Herland society are the most feasible? The most "impossible?" What concepts could lend our civilization the most good? Which have been espoused by Western civilization since 1900?

BLOOD OF EDEN--Peter Gabriel

I caught sight of my reflection
I caught it in the window
I saw the darkness in my heart
I saw the signs of my undoing
They had been there from the start

And the darkness still has work to do
The knotted chord's untying
The heated and the holy
Oh they're sitting there on high
So secure with everything they're buying

In the blood of Eden lie the woman and the man
With the man in the woman and the woman in the man
In the blood of Eden lie the woman and the man
We wanted the union…
Oh the union of the woman, the woman and the man

My grip is surely slipping
I think I've lost my hold
Yes I think I've lost my hold
I cannot get insurance any more
They don't take credit, only gold
Is that a dagger or a crucifix I see
You hold so tightly in your hand
And all the while the distance grows between you and me
I do not understand

In the blood of Eden lie the woman and the man
With the man in the woman and the woman in the man
In the blood of Eden lie the woman and the man
We wanted the the union oh the union of the woman, the woman and the man

At my request you take me in
In that tenderness I am floating away
No certainty, nothing to rely on
Holding still for a moment
What a moment this is
Oh for a moment of forgetting
A moment of bliss
Hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can hear the distant thunder
Of a million unheard souls
Of a million unheard souls
Watch each one reach for creature comfort
For the filling of their holes

(CHORUS)

6) Describe Van, Jeff, and Terry. What do the three represent in a social context, and how do their traits illustrate Gilman's core value system?

7) Briefly discuss this work within the context of the Classic Utopia. What elements does it share? Where and how does it differ?

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