Gender Roles During The 19th Century

It was commonly casted that women during the 19th century were not to go beyond their domestic spheres. If a woman were to go beyond the norms and partake in a “male” activity and not assign to “womanly” duties, it were to take an ill effect on her, because she was designed to act merely as a mother, wife, and homemaker. The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, demonstrates the status of women in the 19th century within society, revealing that madness in this story stems from the oppressive control of gender on woman. A woman who is trying to escape from confinement may result in madness. The use of madness characterizes women as victims of society, suffering the effects of isolation brought on by oppression driving

In her story, The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman expresses exasperation towards the separate male and female roles expected of her society, and the evident repressed rights of a woman versus the active duties of a man. The story depicts the methods taken to cure a woman of her psychological state during Gilman’s time, and delineates the dominant cure of the time period, “the resting cure,” which encouraged the restraint of the imagination ("The Yellow Wallpaper: Looking Beyond the Boundaries") Gilman uses the unnamed narrator to represent the average repressed woman of her time and how her needs were neglected in an attempt to mark a fixed distinction between the standards and expectations of men and women. John, the narrator’s husband, take the designated and patriarchal role of a man who believes he knows everything there is to know about the human mind. His belief of his superior knowledge pushes him to condescend, overshadow, and misunderstand his wife. As a result, his wife loses control of her life and escapes into her own fantasy world, where she is able dominate her imagination, free her mind, and fall into insanity. Gilman describes her era’s approach toward female psychology in order to criticize the patriarchal society she lived in as well as to reveal its effects on the women of her time.

I have to let the readers know how I stumbled upon this topic to introduce where I get my ideas from. It all started in the archive located on the second floor of the library in a dark corner behind a clear glass doors at the Hunter College. I have been attending Hunter College for four years and never have I stumbled on such an amazing place full of live history. I say live history because all the documents and books that are held in the archive are all preserved originals, which fascinated me. Thinking how people who lived more than century ago wrote and read the same things I’m writing and reading about excited me to my very soul. Archive research though fascinating is not an easy task that can be done in within fifteen minutes like how researches are done these days using convenient technologies at hand.

Women’s Rights has been a point of contention for a very long time. Especially during the late 19th and 20th century, it was a seemingly unorthodox idea in a patriarchal society. This is what makes Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper a feminist piece still analyzed to this day. It was a story that was arguably ahead of its time, as was Gilman, with her utopian feminist ideals. She wrote the book with some introspection of her own postpartum depression. The Yellow Wallpaper has been deemed a classic feminist literature piece due to its layers of deeper meaning, achieved through Gilman’s use of symbolism, character, and setting, construed by many to represent the struggles faced by women in the late 19th century.

Our streets are plagued with billboards promoting health and more often than not are showcasing men or make the men look fitter. Healthier and stronger than women. However I find this advertising displeasing and offensive. Health promotion should illustrate equality in order to promote healthy living and exercise for genders and motivate

Often, it said that a man is the first to notice a woman’s madness. However, in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman proves her insanity through her husband’s denial of her condition. Although known for her dark personal revelations, there is also a lot of controversy, inspiring young readers to criticize—as well as commend—her writings. While Gilman’s memoir describes her crucial path of depression and repression, the author is ignorant to that fact that she is essentially describing a prevalent allegory for men living upper class using dialogue and symbolism, which ultimately creates a new identity for women in the late 1800’s. Set in the 1890’s, society lived in a patriarchy where men were commonly stereotyped as superior to women.

In the nineteenth century women lived in an age of inequality because of their gender. Women had very limited choices when it came to their occupational choices, which is why most women stayed home to care for their children take care of the house, keep things clean, and in line and make sure that everything was ready before their husbands came home from their longs days of working.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman once said, ‘’There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver’’. Gilman’s belief that there’s no difference in means of mentality between men or women demonstrated through ‘’The Yellow Wallpaper’’. Gilman symbolically portrays that women suffer from psychological disorders caused by lack of love, care, and a constant pressure of secondary roles and personal unimportance in social life. The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story about a woman who has a mental illness but cannot heal due to her husband’s lack of belief. The story appears to take place during a time frame where women were oppressed. The short story can be analyzed in depth by both the psycho-analytic theory and

Throughout history, our perception of different topics has changed drastically. For example, our view on slavery or government has changed from accepting the culture normal to accepting almost the exact opposite of the traditional idea. Currently, as a society, we work diligently to alter the ancient view we possess on women and mental illness. Charlotte Perkins Gilman represents a type of person who led her time period in revolutionary ideas. In her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman illustrates the internal battles of both being a woman in a society controlled by men and a person who suffers from mental illness, at a time when that topic was not commonly discussed. As Mason Cooley says, “every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.” Cooley used this statement to draw attention to the seriousness of mental illness. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman utilizes the diary of the protagonist to illustrate the deeper thoughts of someone suffering from mental illness, while John, both a husband and physician, ignores his wife’s symptoms and believes that she just needs to rest. The ever-changing role of women in society plays an important role in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” By using descriptive imagery, ambiguous scenes and a first person point-of-view, Gilman creates a short story that utilizes setting to critique the gender roles of the nineteenth-century.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is one of those unique stories that no two people will come away from with the same impression. At its core, it is a simple story of a young mother who is struggling with new aspects of her life. Her caring, loving husband and housekeeper are concerned for her well-being so they attempt to help her by removing all her daily duties. This is a rather simplistic and naïve take on what might be one of the greatest stories written about woman’s rights and mental illness. In her essay A New Woman's Journey into Insanity Descent and Return in The Yellow Wallpaper, Rula Quawas writes about Charlotte Gilman importance to women's rights, saying “Gilman is one of the leading intellectuals of the feminist

In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells a story pertaining to demeaning nature of men towards women in the 1800s. The narrator of the story is a woman who was diagnosed as depressed and is being treated for her illness through isolation, prescribed by her husband, John. At this time, the relationship between husband and wife was overbearing. Male dominance has been present throughout all time periods; specifically in this era, women did what was expected of them. Women were spoken down to, controlled by men throughout their entire lives, and often went unrecognized.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a woman who has a mental illness but cannot heal due to her husband’s lack of belief. The story appears to take place during a time period where women were oppressed. Women were treated as second rate people in society during this time period. Charlotte Perkins Gilman very accurately portrays the thought process of the society during the time period in which “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written. Using the aspects of Feminist criticism, one can analyze “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman through the dialogue through both the male and female perspective, and through the symbol found in the story.

Gender roles were sharply defined in the 19th century. Women were expected to stay at home and carry out the domestic duties as well as taking care of the children and educate them and provide a peaceful home for their husband. Women were seen as loving and caring. On the other hand, men were expected to work and earn money for the family. They would fight wars and were seen as strong and powerful. Men had more freedom and rights, such as the right to vote, than women in the 19th century. Society had created two completely separate spheres. In the medical field, men were doctors. There were laws in many states, such as, that prohibited women from becoming doctors. Women, who decided to practice medicine in the 19th century had to struggle with much opposition because it went against prevailing ideas about women’s role in society. Women belonged in the private and domestic sphere. Men belonged to competitive and immoral public sphere of industry and commerce. The women in medicine would face accusations that they were abandoning their sphere and threatening society. Due to these arguments and the fear of economic competition from female practitioner, male medical schools and hospitals denied women access to institutions. However, Elizabeth Blackwell, changed this idea of separate spheres when she decided to take on the medical field and become a doctor. Although Elizabeth Black had a natural aversion to the medical field, her

In our current time much has changed from the past, men and women are “equal”, but realistically speaking there will always be certain standards set for women that will always differentiate from those set for men. The change in women’s role in the 19th century showed improvement because they began to speak up and refused to be silenced until their voices were heard. This made a deep oppression in the history and lives of women for years to come, but there will always be a standard set by men for women to overcome. The way women are seen today is very different than it was two hundred years ago when our only role was to be mothers, cooks, take care of the children, take care of the home and the husband, and we could not express what we had in mind. Basically this was the typical role of a woman, while men were seen as superior to women and therefore were taking all the decisions not only regarding to them, but also regarding to women and what they thought or wanted was not taken into account. Women were seen as passive and weak, and not as reliable to accomplish all that physically or mentally men could. While it is true that women have accomplished many things throughout the years and that we now own our lives to do with it whatever we want, whether it is be a mother, teacher, businesswoman, and models or have any other type of career we want. It is also true that women of color did not get as many rights and opportunities as white women and were still seen under the

The Nineteenth Century, often nicknamed the Victorian Age, was an era in which gender roles were considered to be completely different in nature. The main difference was that men were portrayed as powerful, independent, and ambitious, while women were viewed as weak, domestic and dependent. The two sexes inhabited a ‘separate sphere’ and only came together in the early morning and late night. With the thought that women were supposed to be more passive and pure than men, came the known fact that women were also more easily corrupted. During the nineteenth century “real” women were thought to have little to no sexual desire. Sex was a taboo subject before marriage and often enough most women learnt what sex was on the night of their wedding. Fashion also progressed in order to supplement the common view of sexuality and dominance. Long skirts with many layers made it difficult and time consuming to dress and undress. Society and economy determined that women were best fit to work at home and take care of their “wifely” duties. Boarding school or a household governesses coached young women in what were known as ‘accomplishments’. Men usually travelled to their place of work for the day and the women and children were left at home to oversee the household duties. A “really good” housekeeper was almost always unhappy, though. While doing the most for others, the housewife usually ruined her own mental and physical health. Weekly schedules and rational designs were formed for the