Herland and rationalism

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's novel Herland connects to the Rationalism time period in that the set up of the book resembles a journal similar to one a scientist wold keep on an exploration, the men are doing scientific things and even though the women's village is seen as this mythical, magical place, the men are still only doing rational, scientific things.  The book is all about the men learning the women's culture and there's also sort of a message of don't mess with women because they can be just as powerful as men, and Vandyck, Jeff, and Terry all get kicked out by the women alone.

The chapter set up on Herland resembles a scientific journal in that the chapter names just list different things the men encountered and did on their journey, such as "Our Relations and Theirs" (chapter 9) and "Their Religions and Our Marriages" (chapter 10).  These are just the main ideas on which they expand in the chapter through what they figured out doing their "experiments"-- hanging out and learning from the women.

Even though the man at the beginning of the book tells the three scientists not to go to the women's village because "None of them had ever seen it. It was dangerous, deadly, they said, for any man to go there." (Gilman ch 1) which implies a mythical and sort of magical evil because they believe its bad but actually haven't gone to check it out and so the village is more of a legend and not a real place.  The men, however, take a scientific approach to much that they do and that includes learning the women's culture and picking out the food to eat in the forests, and they don't treat the women as mythical creatures.