Gilman created a world that could be viewed from the feminist gaze. She focused on how women were not just stay-at-home mothers they were expected to be but also people who had dreams, who were able to travel and work just as men did, and whose goals included a society where women were just as important as men. In the early 1900s this was striking and revolutionary. The stories in this collection are: ''A Coincidence''; ''According To Solomon'', ''An Offender'', ''A Middle-Sized Artist'', ''Martha''s Mother'', ''Her Housekeeper'', ''When I Was A Witch'', ''Making a Living'', ''A Coincidence, The Cottagette'', ''The Boys and the Butter'', ''My Astonishing Dodo'', and ''A Word In Season''.
Foundations of Feminist Fiction. The early 1900s saw a quiet revolution in literature dominated by male adventure heroes. Both men and women moved beyond the norms of the male gaze to write from a different gender perpective, sometimes with female protagonists, but also expressing the universal freedom to write on any subject whatsoever.