Female Empowerment
All of Gilman's poetry is related to feminism. She's an aggressive advocate for women's rights and equality. Often she scrapes over the daily concerns of her gender, however, because she's so insistent that women shouldn't allow themselves to become housewives. If they're living a relatively simple, solitary lifestyle, she really doesn't care about what they have to say. Gilman does, however, advocate that women be allowed to contribute to the workforce and to be educated. Throughout all of her writing, she devotes her attention to the empowerment of women, which high expectations inspire no amount of leniency in her relationships to her female peers.
Disgust for the Housewife's Life
Gilman is not a sympathetic to the housewife. Although she does believe that they are under-appreciated, she blames them for choosing their lifestyle. Despite the oppressive authority of the patriarchy, she urges women to stop accepting their role as a sort of glorified maid. She recognizes the intelligence and potential of so many unworked minds, so she expresses disgust for the choices of women who remain at home all day every day looking after their families. She believes that its selfish to keep yourself locked away from the rest of the world in favor of a few personal people.
Isolation
Repeatedly Gilman's main concern for women is their isolation. Because they are expected to remain in the private sphere, they are insulated from worldly affairs. This leads to a certain ignorance toward things like economy and politics. More importantly, however, Gilman identifies the isolation which every human bears: that of the mind. More or less everyone is looking for somebody to understand them, but we are all trapped within the confines of our minds. The thing that feels really and truly like us -- the intangible soul -- is completely isolated from other souls.
Ambition
Throughout her poetry, Gilman reflects on this theme of ambition. She seems to value accomplishment as the highest virtue, urging women especially to take charge of their own accomplishments. She wants to see the young generation become one which takes action. Unfortunately she falls into the common pitfall of disenfranchised groups in thinking that if only A would happen then X, Y, and Z would instantly be fixed. Even if women had been welcomed into the workforce during Gilman's career, they still would have faced all the residual discrimination with which contemporary women are faced. All of Gilman's great aims, all of the potential ideas of women who spend their days cooking and cleaning, still would need to applied practically before producing results. The honest truth is that blind ambition, the kind that's found in children, must be paired with discipline and practicality in order to solve problems and manifest into something meaningful.
