The "Rest Cure" came about in the late nineteenth century and was created by S. Weir Mitchell to treat hysteria and other nervous illnesses. Of course today humanity knows that the rest cure does not work but back then, they honestly thought it did...or perhaps they did not. Women and men who showed the same symptoms were prescribed different treatment options which came from a lack of knowledge and a great amount of sexism in the time period. This was a key moment in the feminist movement of the 19th century which began to show that people were not going to sit around and allow these and other misogynistic acts to continue.

       Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a short story about a woman in the 1800s being sentenced to the rest cure even though there is nothing wrong with her. Gilman is speaking to anyone who wants to know more about how she and other women were treated in the hopes that others will make a change for the better. The rest cure consisted of six to eight weeks of being confined to a bedroom and no interactions with others. Patients were also banned from doing anything creative and had to be force fed and shocked most of the time. This treatment was seen as a way for patients to get away from a bad environment at home or regain lost weight if they are underfed but in reality, it was a complete gimmick and meant to break the wills of those who were forced to participate in this cruel torture. It was meant to put the women in a mindset that the men wanted them to be in and it did not have their best interests in mind but rather the doctors' interests. Gilman even states that she could not reply or argue with the orders from the bedrest by saying "So of course I said no more on that score " (Gilman 215). The doctor guilt tripped her into having to listen to whatever he said because of the views on gender roles at the time and how women were not "supposed to" talk for themselves or have some creative mind.

       The men who had the same symptoms of the women were not subject to the same torment that the women were but they had to go through a "west cure" which consisted of them doing "manly" things like cowboys would. This also was a thing that should not have been forced upon people and it pushed the idea of gender roles so far that it has made it very difficult to recover from to this day. Even though the men had to go through an unnecessary "treatment", it was nothing compared to the blatant misogyny that the women of the time went through in the rest cure. Anne Stiles believes that both "cures" were meant to "...reinforce 'proper' sexual behavior " (Stiles Go Rest Young Man). This way of thinking continued the hubris notion of gender roles which we still struggle with today. These roles at the time were to make men more masculine and be the workhorses of the time while looking down on women who wanted to enter a profession. Science at the time played a significant role in these ideas since biological differences between the sexes were used in almost everything.

       The effects on the mind that the so called cure had were tremendous. Women went mad with the confinement process. The narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" went mad from being trapped in the room for so long. According to the Science Museum, many people challenged the idea of the rest cure while some "  [F]eminist scholars argued the rest cure reinforced an archaic and oppressive notion that women should submit unquestioningly to male authority because it was good for their health" (Science Museum). The doctors exacerbated the problem by forcing them to eat fatty foods and sometimes force feeding them if needed. The rest cure was not only used to "cure" mental traumas but it was also enforced in order to try and treat anorexia. This is a prime example of just how women were seen and treated in this day and age. Woman weren't seen as mentally stable or their body image had to be perfect at all times. Very few men went through rest treatment in comparison to their female counterparts and if they did, it was either not as invasive or used to masculinized effeminate men.  In "The Yellow Wallpaper", Gilman points out how John looks at her when she began saying. She writes, "[John] sat up and straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word" (Gilman 215). It shows how society viewed the condition that the narrator had about mental health and that a good number of people think that they are better than people with these conditions. Some even think that they do not have to worry about people with these factors if they are not directly related to them.

The feminist movement of the 19th century was difficult for many reasons other than the rest cure being prominent. Many feminists were nervous about organized movements but still supported the notion of it. Queen Victoria was against the feminist movement and thought that it was a waste of time and effort. This is exemplified in the Victorian image of being a "proper woman" and the idea of separate spheres. The Queen was later known to write letters talking of how "mad and wicked " the Rights Movements was at the time (Crawford). Florence Nightingale ignited a fire for many feminists but did not specifically prefer an organized front. She believed that women had the same amount of potential that men had but just had no chances of fulfilling that potential. Some feminists dismissed her views because of their own differing opinions. Nightingale has later been removed as a figurehead for modern nurses (1999) because of the actual amount of privilege she had in her life. The Nurse's union said she built her hospital out of family money and had a bad approach to nursing.  Even though she has been less of a factor for modern day feminism, she was still a big push for the movement in the mid-19th century.

       The feminists of the 19th century and "The Yellow Wallpaper" exemplify how unneeded this method of "treatment" was in the time as well as how people, mainly women, were treated in general. Since Gilman was a patient of Mitchell's rest cure, the story is more accurately portrayed and the message it sends is much stronger. The Rest Cure may have worked on a few patients but that does not change the fact that it was misogynistic, unnecessary, and completely wrong which is a statement that could be said for many other things that happened during the time period.

