This new edition of Women and Economics highlights the importance of Charlotte Perkins Gilman as a leading public intellectual of the Progressive Era. It contains Gilman's most influential economic analysis, including her signature idea that the relationship between men and women is at core 'sexuo-economic.' Gilman applies ideas and techniques from evolutionary science to the study of marriage and the family. Her highly original approach reveals that female dependency is not a natural but rather a cultivated phenomenon. Women and Economics proposes wide-reaching social and economic reforms that were radical at the time and, as numerous twenty-first-century feminist economists continue to argue, are yet to be achieved today.

Related literary works by Gilman and historical documents allow readers to situate Gilman's ideas in relation to larger debates concerning labour relations, the family, and women's role in society.