Gender plays a large part in determining mental illness. According to The World Health Organization, mental illness is not only more common in women but also more persistent than in men. The text "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the music video to the song, "I'm Gonna Show You Crazy" by Bebe Rexha deal with the misconstrued notions about women's mental health. Both want to address the problems with the common belittlement of the issues women deal with and the oppression of women by their male counterparts and do so through literary devices such as tone, imagery, and indignant diction. 

Both Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Bebe Rexha's "I'm Gonna Show You Crazy" address the issues regarding the mental health of women and the stress women undergo in society. The main similarity between these two pieces are that they both share a common theme. Both pieces challenge the belief that women should follow the demands of the men in their lives and shows how powerless women can be made to feel by men. 

The narrator in Gilman's story feels the pressure to be a perfect wife and mother in the nineteenth century. She knows she is supposed to submit to her husband's wishes and live the way he wants her to, despite what she may want. We know this because when she tries to discuss her mental disorder, her husband replies with, "My darling,... for my sake and for our child's sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind." She must act as if nothing is wrong with her and do as he says, even though she knows that it is not what is best for her well-being. Similarly, Bebe Rexha also feels the pressure of being a woman in today's society. Feeling that pressure, she says, "I'm tired of trying to be normal. I'm always overthinking. I'm driving myself crazy." She tries to convince those around her that she is normal and tries to conform to society's standards. By doing this, she has become anxious and self-conscious. She acknowledges that she has to let go and be herself even if people may disagree with the things she does. 

The women in both of these pieces are dealing with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. The narrator writes about her depression, "I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it's due to this nervous condition." She knows that her mental state is not normal and acknowledges that she is abnormally depressed and anxious, yet her own husband will not take her seriously enough to provide her with real help, allowing her condition to only get worse. Bebe Rexha parallels this by singing, 

"There's a war inside my head. Sometimes I wish that I was dead. I'm broken." She is in a bad place and having dangerously dark thoughts. Her self-esteem is wearing thin to the point of having suicidal thoughts, yet is also not receiving any real help because everyone around her simply believes she is just being overdramatic. Neither of these women are taken seriously due to their gender and status in society. The narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" comes second to her husband, so her needs do not come first, and Rexha is a young, seemingly undignified girl who is believed to be just going through typical "teenage girl things." 

The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" does not get the treatment for her illnesses that she needs and deserves because her husband completely disregards her well-being and refuses to let anyone else but himself help her, making her believe that she is simply unfixable. She expresses her uncertainty by saying, "If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency - what is one to do?" She knows that she needs more help, but also understands that because of her husband, she will be unable to receive it. She also argues that the wallpaper is what is making her feel truly uncomfortable but her husband negates her beliefs. She says, "He said that after the wallpaper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on." Her own husband ultimately led her to believe that she was unfixable. 

Bebe Rexha helps us to better understand this by saying, "So I call this therapist and she said, 'Girl you can't be fixed. Just take this.'" and challenges her by saying, "I don't need your quick fix, I don't want your prescriptions." This helps us to better understand that this has become a growing problem throughout generations: that those in the medical field often prescribe medicine to cope with problems instead of dealing with the root of the problems themselves. This results in many people who don't truly need medication being directed to take it anyways, and actually making their illnesses worse. 

Gilman and Rexha do have some differences in views when it comes to society's standards. The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" wants to break away from the negative opinions that others have of her and prove them wrong. Rexha takes a different approach and chooses to embrace those opinions. Rexha even takes it to an extreme at points. One verse of her song says, "Loco, maniac, sick bitch, psychopath. Yeah I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna show you. Yeah, I'm gonna show you. Mental, out my brain. Batshit, go insane." The intense word choice of this verse shows just how passionately she feels about her position in society and the view of her that others have. She uses, 'loco,' the Mexican or Spanish word for 'crazy' and 'maniac,' which according to Dictionary.com, means "a raving or violently insane person" to describe herself, possibly because people have called her those things before. She also uses the slang word 'batshit' which is usually followed by the word 'crazy' and is believed to be derived 

from the idiom, "to have bats in a belfry." Instead of defending herself against the names thrown at her, she chooses to be different and simply go against the societal norms. She is diagnosed as insane and even deranged but she doesn't believe that she is any of those things. She just embraces her individuality. 

The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" begins to believe that it is actually the treatment that her husband has prescribed to her that is making her more mentally unstable. She argues, "I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus - but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition and I confess it always makes me feel bad." From this, it is easy to see that the narrator is feeling alone and isolated from the rest of society. She believes that the treatment is actually the real reason for her madness and comes to an understanding of herself. Rexha also helps us to understand this better when she says, "I've been searching city streets trying to find the missing piece like you said. And I searched hard only to find there's not a fucking thing that's wrong with my mind." By the expletive language used, you can infer that she is fed up with being told that there is something wrong with her. Having a 'missing piece' as she says, means that people think she is not all there in the head. Rexha's journey has allowed her to contemplate and soul search who she actually was and she found out she was just being herself all along. She decided that the only thing that is wrong with her, is the fact that she is being told that there is something wrong with her by everyone she meets.

Finally, the narrator of Gilman's story finally breaks. While it could be argued that this is the moment she gives into her madness, it could also be that she has broken away from her oppression. She exclaims, "'I've got out at last,' I said, 'In spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled most of the paper, so you can't put me back!'" The narrator believes that she's freed herself and even though others see her as crazy in this moment, she sees herself as a new, liberated woman. Bebe Rexha's line, "Just cause you think I'm crazy, so what if I'm fucking crazy." helps us understand the freedom that the narrator from "The Yellow Wallpaper" is feeling. They are both done trying to conform to society's standards of "normal." They both begin to live their lives for them and not for anyone else.

By pairing these two pieces together, readers can easily see the messages about women's mental health being spread by both Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Bebe Rexha. Both women challenge gender roles and prove that the only person who can determine what is best for you is yourself. They also challenge the idea that women are mostly overreacting when it comes to mental health and both prove that they should be taken seriously. Bebe Rexha's modern and fresh take on madness helps us to better analyze Gilman's piece and come to a better understanding of the message she is sending to her audience of young women everywhere.

