Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) is one of the most important women contributors to classical sociology, primarily because of the originality and significance of her theoretical work. Although well known to her contemporaries in both the United States and Europe, Gilman's legacy was not fully acknowledged by sociologists until her work was recently rediscovered under the impetus of second wave feminist scholarship. Gilman's overarching accomplishment as a sociologist was to formulate a still unparalleled conception of gender. She was both the first theorist to separate gender, as socially...