Women’s health issues have long been explained away as emotional issues due to their role as the “weaker sex.” Serious illnesses were diagnosed as nothing more than hysteria and rest was prescribed. This ignorance of women’s real health problems is brilliantly portrayed in this haunting tale of a woman driven to the brink.

The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman actually suffered a horrible case of post partum depression for which she was treated in a similar condescending manner.