DeFrees is a published writer and an editor with a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Virginia and a law degree from the University of Texas. In the following essay, DeFrees discusses the early feminist tendencies of fiction writer Kate Chopin.

Can women and men be equal? The question appears prosaic and even simplistic. But it elicits a larger question: what is equality? Is it something that exists in nature, or does it spring from the machinations of society? How Kate Chopin answers that question in her short story, "A Point at Issue!," is a manifestation of both her liberal mindset—especially by mid-nineteenth century standards, which was when the story was written—and of the blossoming of that mindset from within the confines of a society holding fast to the notion that a woman's position in the hierarchy of the household was...