If someone were to boast about women always being treated as equals, he or she would be shut down with historical evidence and data. Many works of art and pieces of literature beautifully demonstrate the hardships women have faced in the past. We have made leaps and bounds toward achieving the goal of equality since the 1800’s, however, there is still much work to be done. “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “What If Shakespeare Had Had a Sister“, two stories written almost forty years apart, portray common challenges women faced every day. The idea that a woman could control her life was preposterous Her fate was held in the hands of the men in her life and many men considered women to only be good enough for housekeeping and child birthing. Today many consider this to be sexist and utterly wrong, however this wasn’t the case in the 1800‘s to the early 1900s.
When the protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper“ speaks about her mental state and the diagnosis her doctor, whom is also her husband, gave her she says “You see, he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? If a physician of high standing, and one‘s own husband, assures friends and relatives there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency— what is one to do?” Women were left hopeless with a misguided diagnosis. Whether it be postmortem depression or other serious mental illnesses, it would not matter because what the doctor said was final. What does a woman know? A woman’s life was not only controlled by the men related by blood, but also by men in society. Men ran everything and to see a woman try to work alongside them would be insane.
It could never be allowed. The speaker of Woolf‘s story, when speaking of Shakespeare’s figurative sister, gives a great example when saying “She wanted to act, she said. Men laughed in her face. The manager guffawed… no women, he said, could possibly be an actress.” Even if the women ran away from closed-minded parents, society would still impose men’s dominance on women. Being oppressed takes a toll on the brain and mental stability of a woman. Constantly being told what one can and cannot do and constantly having simple hobbies slowly slipped from one’s grasp can drive anyone insane. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the protagonist has small liberties stripped away. She can no longer write, be with her new-born, or simply go outside to feel the sun on her skin. instead of helping her by locking her in a room, John, her husband, allows her mental state to worsen.
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She refuses to go outside “For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green and not yellow,” this is not normal behavior. Secluding the protagonist has aggravated her condition to the point where she is socially inept and “creeps” instead of walks. Every color is unpleasing to her eyes except yellow. To put it simply she is “a woman at strife against herself. All the conditions of her life, all her own instincts, were hostile to the state of mind which is need to set free whatever is in the brain.” Two different stories, written in two very different time periods, yet telling similar stories. These are the stories we keep near and teach to generation after generation, not only do they speak of similar tales, they serve to remind us all of a terrible time when women had no voice.
