the problematics of motherhood in twentieth century women's fiction

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when they learn from the men that outside Herland, people
have sex wlthout regard to motherhood The status of women
In Herland 1s an lnverslon of the contemporary the male is
merely the sex and the female represents the whole world of
actlon Jusc as in Herland, so in the Whlleawayan soclety of
Joanne Russ's The Female Man, parthenogenesls 1s practised.
rendering men superfluous to therr exrstence. Women have no
need of men for emotional, flnanclal, or socral security, or
even for sexual fulfilment. The men therefore frnd ~t
dlfflmlt to establrsh relatlonshlps wrth the women In the
absence of traditional sex roles In Woman on The Edge of
Txme, Luclente states "Fasure we couple Not for money,
not for a llvlng For love, for pleasure, for rellef, out
of hablt, out of curloslty and lust" (WET 581 Gllman and
Piercy str-ke common ground In eraslng the connection
between sex and econornlcs, but whlle Gllman does so by
ellmlnatxng sexuallty altogether, Plercy removes only the
utllltarlan motives from sexuality maklng ~t a purely
hedon1st;c act:vlty Gllman re~terates the fact that sex and
economlcs go hand-ln-hand, she clalms that human belngs are
the only specxes In whlch the female depends on the male for
food, the only specles ln whlch the sex-relatlon 1s also an
economlc relat;on. Treatrng sexuallty both as a cultural
construct and de-emphasizing zt, she advocates economlc
independence and a subllmatlon of the sex-lnstlnct Into a
social lnstinct