Women and Economics

Charlotte Perkins Gilman - Women and Economics. A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution is a book written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1898. It is considered by many to be her single greatest work, and as with much of Gilman’s writing, the book touched a few dominant themes: the transformation of marriage, the family, and the home, with her central argument: the economic independence and specialization of women as essential to the improvement of marriage, motherhood, domestic industry, and racial improvement.

Startling in its observations and radical in its conclusions, this classic of women’s rights literature, this work—by pioneering American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935)—was a phenomenon when it was first published in 1898, and was eventually translated into seven languages and reprinted around the world. From her characterization of women as virtual economic, social, and sexual slaves, dependent on men for everything from food to friendship to protection, to her call for women to free themselves from these shackles, Women and Economics electrified Victorian readers. It remains a foundational work of feminist theory, essential reading for anyone wishing to understand women’s struggle for full and self-determined personhood.