She uses The Awakening as an indictment against the restrictions placed on women, highlighting gender issues in her time that were deeply held and hotly debated. Women were property and, as such, had no property rights and therefore very few options outside of marriage. Most women were completely dependent on men. They were expected to run the house and raise the children, even though many were unsuited to this task.29 The "voluntary motherhood" movement defended women's rights to choose whether and when they had a child30, a choice which was obviously not given to Edna. , considering her feelings about motherhood. Chopin created a character so strongly opposed to the obligation of motherhood that she committed suicide, a shocking contradiction to the idea that the "woman-mother"31 ​​was the