It is considered by many to be her single greatest work,[1] 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.”[2] The 1890s were a period of intense political debate and economic challenges, with the Women's Movement seeking the vote and other reforms.

Women were “entering the work force in swelling numbers, seeking new opportunities, and shaping new definitions of themselves.”[3] It was near the end of this tumultuous decade that Gilman's very popular book emerged.

Gilman envisioned kitchenless houses and designed cooperative kitchens in city apartment buildings which would further help women balance work and family and provide some social support for wives who were still homebound.

][11] Gilman's feminist friends and colleagues praised the book upon its release, with Jane Addams calling it a “masterpiece,” and Florence Kelley writing that it was “the first real, substantial contribution made by a woman to the science of economics.”[12] Miriam Schneir also included this text in her anthology Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings, labelling it as one of the essential works of feminism.

Gilman states in the book that she opposes corporal punishment, believing instead that parents should explain their reasoning to their children.

She borrowed the concept that the realm of production is central to human life and that the workplace is the area of both oppression and liberation from Karl Marx, while applying it to gender, rather than solely class.

[16] Gilman was also very influenced by Edward Bellamy and his work Looking Backward, as seen in her kitchenless home and the other technical advances she advocated to help with housework.

[19] Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, two feminist scholars, stated that Women and Economics was “the theoretical breakthrough for a whole generation of feminists, [for it] appealed not to right or morality but to evolutionary theory.”[20] Conversely, one scholar stated that “Gilman’s evolutionary feminism does not provide contemporary feminism with a model to emulate,” despite its frequent use in university classrooms, but rather offers an alternative view of the social problems faced by women.

[22] In various other works, she refers to other races as inferior and belonging to a lower part of the evolutionary ladder, “echoing the very social Darwinist sentiments that she despised when applied to gender”.