Gilman, Charlotte P.

A reformer and feminist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, she wrote Women and Economics (1898), a plea for female economic independence. Gilman believed that prohibiting or discouraging women from earning their livelihood made them overly dependent on men and incapable of contributing to the larger life of the community. Her belief that inequality between men and women would not be remedied merely by giving women the vote inspired feminists, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.