Women in the 19th Century

Women from the 19th century faced great challenges as they pursued excellence in their daily life. Traditional customs regarding medicine, marriage, and equality where much different during the 19th century than they are today. The Yellow Wall-Paper, a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman shows the struggles of a young, married woman as she endures poor medical treatment and unfair treatment in her relationship with her husband due to a form of depression that she has.

    Charlotte endured harsh consequences for partaking in things that she was interested in pursuing. For example, her husband did not allow her to write, just one of her many passions. Gilman shows her fear of being caught writing when she writes “There comes John, and I must put this away, - he hates to have me write a word.” Her husband, John, a physician, slowly began to implement S. Weir Mitchell’s new pathological treatment into healing his wife from her ‘illness’. One of the fundamental pieces to this treatment is limiting social contact, forced downtime, and limited writing and reading. Charlotte was not allowed to write because it was against the new ‘fabulous’ treatment that was supposed to cure her mental ailments.

    This ‘fabulous’ treatment completely changed the daily life of a woman perceived to have a mental illness. Rather than evaluating the true issue behind a woman’s depression or anxiety, it was assumed that women were weak psychologically or that their illness was due to their sexual organs. These assumptions made for poor medical decisions that were sometimes lethal. An article published by the University of Toledo Libraries suggests that “Women were especially vulnerable to inadequate diagnoses and treatment in 19th century America. It was commonly believed that most physical ailments of women were caused by their sexual organs or mental disorders, resulting in painful, sometimes lethal treatment.” Because women were perceived as weak, their diagnoses were undermined. Suddenly, it became acceptable for women to endure surgical procedures and months away from a usual life to be cured of a mental illness.

    As society continued to look down upon a woman's sexual competence and their mental competency as a result, more measures were taken to control pregnancy to eliminate the social issues of women with a mental illness. Practices were introduced to cure insanity and to promote eugenics. The article Women’s Healthcare in the 19th Century suggests “Dr. Isaac Baker Brown in 1858 proposed clitoridectomies to stop self-abuse, [...] Dr. Robert Battey espoused removing ovaries to cure insanity. [...] Dr. Alice Stockham believed all female problems were psychological, and asserted the mind could control even malignant tumors.” Doctors were prescribing treatments that were so farfetched from the mental issues on hand that they were causing more issues than they began with. Psychological issues were unfairly diagnosed because of the opinions of the time.

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman faced these barriers first hand following the delivery of her child. From The Yellow Wall-Paper, Charlotte shows the reader that she was separated from her child when she became ‘ill’. She makes this clear when she writes “It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.” By being separated from her child, Gilman is showing that due to her pregnancy and delivery, she became ill. This supports what was occurring in the medical world at the time; pregnancy/sexual behavior was the reason for a mental illness. Today, Charlotte would most likely have been diagnosed with Postpartum Depression, an illness affecting women following labor that causes anxiety towards being a mother.

    The conditions placed upon women caused insanity in themselves. Those placed in the Rest Cure yearned to escape and those forced to endure surgeries faced a high likelihood of dying on the table or extreme pain from lack of anesthesia. Although Charlotte was not forced to be surgically altered, her experience with  a version of the Rest Cure caused her to want to escape from her room’s depressing wallpaper. Gilman shows her yearn to remove this wallpaper and her successful execution when she writes “‘I’ve got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and jane? And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’” Gilman’s removal of the wallpaper showed her hatred and sorrow towards being trapped in the room for so long.

Removing the wallpaper signified her triumph over the Rest Cure. Removing the wallpaper went against John’s belief that the wallpaper was the reason for her improving mental conditions. Gilman shows his belief when she writes “At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies.” Her removal of the wallpaper signaled a mental breaking point in which she could no longer handle the silence and lack of social intimacy found in the outside world.

    Women in the 19th century faced an incredible amount of medical malpractice which affected individuals socially, physically, and mentally. Society created a set of procedures to ‘eliminate’ mental illness in women but instead, these procedures created bigger problems for the overall health of women. The Yellow-Wallpaper effectively showed Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s struggle with depression during the 19th century and the harsh treatments that she encountered due to her mental illness.