Feministic Approach Analysis On The Yellow Wallpaper

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the role of women is diminished in many different ways.

The first line that we find regarding women discrimination is “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage”. To me this phrase is saying that when a woman is married can expect anything from her husband, and that making fun of her is an insignificant gesture.

If we keep reading, we are going to find quotes that refers to a woman’s submission to a husband and men in general, and her lack of strength against their will, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relative that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency – what is one to do? My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing”. Here we cannot just notice about submission, but also about a man’s respect, they could do or say anything just because they were respected among society.

Back in the days the story was written, women who read or wrote were becoming more aware of the world around them, men didn’t like that because education was changing women’s ideas and they started to want more respect and different roles in society, not only the ones of childbearing and housekeeping. This was the reason why many women had to do certain tricks like writing under a male’s name to get away with their heart’s desires. Gilman shows it to us when she writes: “… and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?”

It is very common that men believe that if a woman has everything she needs (a house, kids and food) that she should have nothing to worry about, many of them say “I don’t know why she is not happy; I give her everything she wants”. The writer also expresses that thought, “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him”.

The last thing I want to refer to is to the fact that when the woman of the family is ill, everybody is looking forward for her recover, but it is not because they are concerned, but because a family kinds of fall apart when there is no woman to keep everything together. They are not really worried about the lady, they are worried about themselves, and Gilman writes it like this: “He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well”.

Even though women have been oppressed through history, I consider that we are the strongest gender, not physically, but in every other aspect we are superior to men, just take a look around and see how in a very few decades we have overthrown men’s leadership. Little by little and very subtlety, of course, that’s

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