Charlotte Perkins Gilman Research Paper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an important feminist writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1892, Gilman published “Yellow Wallpaper” in the New England Magazine. It was written to address and acknowledge societal treatment of women’s mental and physical health. During the time of publication, the “domestic ideology” placed women in a position of spiritual and moral leadership that gave them control over household duties such as cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children, while the men were supposed to uphold the duties of the public domain through work, politics, and economics. As the concept of early women’s rights began to take place however, these ideas were pushed, especially by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Gilman did not have the easiest childhood. Her father, Frederick Beecher Perkins, …show more content…
Following the birth of her daughter, Gilman suffered from a case of post-partum depression. After a few months, Gilman reached out to a famous neurologist to help with her depression. This doctor and many other during that time, often brushed mental illness off as nothing to be concerned with, especially when involving women. Most of the time, these illnesses are referred to as “nervousness” or “hysteria”. In Gilman’s personal experience, according to an article she wrote titled “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper”, the famous neurologist told her to live as domestic a life as possible, effectively applying the “rest cure” and basically telling her that there was nothing wrong with her. His “advice” to Gilman was to live a simple life with “but two hours' intellectual life a day," and "never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again" as long as I lived”. Gilman wrote that she followed the doctor’s orders for only three months before it almost drove her mad. The madness is what inspired Gilman to write the tragic short