Injustice in Women 's Mental Health Care Female inequality is a touchy subject but is very much real. Females have fought long and hard to get where they are today but still have a long way to go. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote a short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” that gives readers an idea of how mental health care was in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. Health care has improved drastically since this time period so 21st century readers can be shocked at how inhumane this story may seem. John is the husband of the narrator of this short story and he also is her caretaker. He seems to belittle his wife and ended up making her condition much worse. It is possible that John thought that he was doing what was best for his wife or maybe he just
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When the readers know what the writer has experienced in his or her lifetime, it can help clarify the meaning or significance of the story. When it comes to women 's rights the late 1800’s, they did not have many. They were still unable to vote and were looked at as weaker and less intelligent as men. ( As far as mental health care went in the late 19th century it started off as being something that families would deal with at home. People soon started to become afraid of people with mental health issues, so asylums were built to care for them. Because of this, 1890 through 1918, private hospitals for mental care were at their peak of popularity. ( Women were considered to be insane for a number of reasons that are considered normal in today’s world like: menstruation-related mood swings, postpartum depression, anxiety, and even disobedience. Although some of these are still considered mental health conditions, there are better treatments for them today. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator had recently given birth to a child so it is possible that she was experiencing what is now a common disorder in new mothers, postpartum depression. But in the story it is referred to as “nervous depression.” ( There has been natural remedies to depression that included things …show more content…
She dealt with depression since she was fifteen years old and it only worsened through her marriage and motherhood. ( This obviously had a great influence on the writing of this short story. The standards that society placed on women in this time period were not things Gilman was interested in. She claimed at a young age that “ she would not marry; she felt doing so would give too much control to the part of herself she wanted to suppress--"that useful animal a wife and a mother"” ( Many women in the 21st century choose not to marry or have children and it is look at as perfectly normal. So that is why Kelly A. O’Connor-Salomon claimed that Gilman was “A Woman Ahead of Her Time.” ( By writing this story she was able to make people aware of the inequalities that women suffered in this time. This story made it so obvious that the narrator knew what was best for her but the men in the story ignored her judgement. It was also an opportunity for her to tell about her struggles with depression in a less direct way. It is possible that she believed she would reach more people through a fiction book rather than an autobiography about her depression and oppression. To say that getting married and having children was the worst thing for her in this time period,
When the readers know what the writer has experienced in his or her lifetime, it can help clarify the meaning or significance of the story. When it comes to women 's rights the late 1800’s, they did not have many. They were still unable to vote and were looked at as weaker and less intelligent as men. ( As far as mental health care went in the late 19th century it started off as being something that families would deal with at home. People soon started to become afraid of people with mental health issues, so asylums were built to care for them. Because of this, 1890 through 1918, private hospitals for mental care were at their peak of popularity. ( Women were considered to be insane for a number of reasons that are considered normal in today’s world like: menstruation-related mood swings, postpartum depression, anxiety, and even disobedience. Although some of these are still considered mental health conditions, there are better treatments for them today. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator had recently given birth to a child so it is possible that she was experiencing what is now a common disorder in new mothers, postpartum depression. But in the story it is referred to as “nervous depression.” ( There has been natural remedies to depression that included things …show more content…
She dealt with depression since she was fifteen years old and it only worsened through her marriage and motherhood. ( This obviously had a great influence on the writing of this short story. The standards that society placed on women in this time period were not things Gilman was interested in. She claimed at a young age that “ she would not marry; she felt doing so would give too much control to the part of herself she wanted to suppress--"that useful animal a wife and a mother"” ( Many women in the 21st century choose not to marry or have children and it is look at as perfectly normal. So that is why Kelly A. O’Connor-Salomon claimed that Gilman was “A Woman Ahead of Her Time.” ( By writing this story she was able to make people aware of the inequalities that women suffered in this time. This story made it so obvious that the narrator knew what was best for her but the men in the story ignored her judgement. It was also an opportunity for her to tell about her struggles with depression in a less direct way. It is possible that she believed she would reach more people through a fiction book rather than an autobiography about her depression and oppression. To say that getting married and having children was the worst thing for her in this time period,