Editing Androcentrism (section)

== Etymology ==

The term ''androcentrism'' was introduced 1903 by [[Lester Frank Ward]] in his book Pure Sociology.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ward |first=Lester F. |url=http://www.geocities.ws/ralf_schreyer/ward/download/pure_sociology.pdf  |title=Pure Sociology: A Treatise on the Origin and Spontaneous Development of Society |date=1903 |language=English}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |date=March 1903 |title=<i>Pure Sociology: A Treatise on the Origin and Spontaneous Development of Society.</i>Lester F. Ward |url=https://doi.org/10.1086/211176 |journal=American Journal of Sociology |volume=8 |issue=5 |pages=710 |doi=10.1086/211176 |issn=0002-9602}}</ref> In his approach from biology to sociology, he argued that the life evolves from gynaecocracy to androcentrism. He wrote that "the male sex is viewed as primary, and the female is secondary", as a consequence of human evolution, but that in evolutionary biology, the female organism is primary as a means of procreation (1914, 292).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wilson |first=Robert H. |date=1982 |title=Lester F. Ward and the Theory of Gynaecocracy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41881334 |journal=International Social Science Review |volume=57 |issue=3 |pages=145–148 |jstor=41881334 |issn=0278-2308}}</ref> After [[Charlotte Perkins Gilman]] heard him in a scientific debate, herself acknowledged his contribution in the preface to the first edition of her book, ''The Man-Made World; or, Our Androcentric Culture'',<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gilman |first=Charlotte Perkins |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3015 |title=The Man-Made World; Or, Our Androcentric Culture |date=2002-01-01 |language=English}}</ref> published in 1911. Following the ideas of Lester Frank Ward ideas, Perkins Gilman argued that women were the dominant sex and only needed men for  fertilisation. As insects and plants, women were originally primary to nature. Androcentrism was a consequence of human development in society, "based on an irrational glorification of the trivial male fertilizing function, had “resulted in arresting the development of half the world.”<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-06-21 |title=Feminism, Social Science, and the Meanings of Modernity: The Debate on the Origin of the Family in Europe and the United States, 1860–1914 {{!}} History Cooperative |url=https://historycooperative.org/journal/feminism-social-science-and-the-meanings-of-modernity-the-debate-on-the-origin-of-the-family-in-europe-and-the-united-states-1860-1914/ |access-date=2024-12-17 |language=en-US}}</ref> Therefore, androcentrism can be understood as a societal fixation on masculinity from which all things originate. Under androcentrism, masculinity is normative and all things outside of masculinity are defined as ''[[Other (philosophy)|other]]''. According to Perkins Gilman, masculine patterns of life and masculine mindsets claimed [[Universality (philosophy)|universality]] while female patterns were considered as [[deviance (sociology)|deviance]].<ref name="CPG_1911">{{cite book |last=Perkins Gilman |first=Charlotte |author-link=Charlotte Perkins Gilman |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3015/3015-h/3015-h.htm |title=The man-made world: or, Our androcentric culture |publisher=Charlton |year=1911 |location=New York |oclc=988836210}}</ref> She used these ideas in her essay ''The Man-Made World'' and her fictional book Herland,<ref>{{Citation |title=Herland (novel) |date=2024-12-02 |work=Wikipedia |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herland_(novel) |access-date=2024-12-17 |language=en}}</ref> where an isolated group of women still remain in a gynecological society. In Herland, this community based on feminine principles is perfectly harmonious, rather than the current conflict-ridden androcentric society.