Mahatma Gandhi once said “Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity; the female sex” (Mahatma Gandhi). Women around the world have been fighting for their gender freedoms for countless years. This is a proven fact seen through our own nation’s history and the current laws that have been fought to give women the common rights that men have. When America was young and growing, men extremely limited women and kept them in their socially acceptable environment, the house. From then on our modern society has improved the treatment of women. It is now more socially acceptable to see a woman leading from the front as men do, however they are not completely equal.

The Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman perfectly underlines the treatment of women in the 19th century. Both the main character and her husband represent gender inequalities of the 19th century. The main character is trapped inside a temporary house because she was diagnosed with a nervous condition. While she was captive; her husband was out all day earning a living. She was medically kept in the temporary house because her doctor prescribed her the rest cure to relieve her nervousness. Through close reading as well as research, readers can identify that the main character was suffering from postpartum depression. This is evident because shortly after Jane had her baby she was removed from her house due to her perceived change in behavior after birth. The literary criticism of The Yellow Wallpaper states, “the term postpartum depression was not extant in the Victorian vocabulary, John has diagnosed Jane as suffering from “temporary nervous depression [with] a slight hysterical tendency” (Suess Barbara). In the 19th century many mental tendencies where unnamed by doctors and thus most doctors classified the variety of tendencies as neurasthenia.

 As seen in The Yellow Wallpaper the recommended cure for female hysteria, or female neurasthenia, was the rest cure. The neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell created the rest cure for females that suffered from female hysteria. He also created the west cure for men that also had neurasthenic tendencies. Because of how society viewed men and women as unequal both cures were accepted as a cure for the same diagnosed nervous tendency. Men were sent to the west to become more manly and less nervous, as to women being confined to a room or home and forced to eat and sleep all day every day. Silas Weir Mitchell had an extreme bias against women, “Once the patient began to benefit physically from the rest cure Mitchell began the process of “Moral Reeducation,” which focused on a discussion of how to keep feelings under control” (Ellen L. Bassuk 249). He thought that a women’s shortcoming was their emotion expressiveness. He embodied an extreme view of women in the 19th century, and the clear evidence of this was the rest and west cure.

As our history moves forward the cures that Mitchell formulated are highly ineffective. Medically women and men become more alike in terms of diagnosis mentally. Doctors and researchers discover how the human body functions and neurological advances uncover more defined characteristics of emotion as well as its causes. Socially women began to abjure to inequality within society and caused many changes in law and societal beliefs. 19th century views were no longer acceptable and women started to get out and stand up to be self-governed and successful. This is clear in the many rights they fought for, such as the: 19th amendment, women on the supreme court in 1981, violence against women act, and the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act. Women have come a long way and still fight today to be equal to men. All the rights women fight for are not won in one day or one try; they were all shot down many times by males that believed in “traditional” female inequality. 

Views on women have changed in America as they gain their freedoms and prove their equal capabilities of; intelligence, physical fitness, and leadership potential. They abolish gender inequality as they prove to men that they are capable of anything men can do. This is noted in the tennis game Riggs v. King. Bobby Riggs had that common belief that men were physically better than women in sports, particularly tennis. Billie Jean King challenged Riggs on national TV to prove him wrong and show that women can be equal. She won every single set they played and completely embarrassed Riggs. Another example can be seen within the American military. Women gained the right to join the military in 1917 and have fought since then to gain equality over males within the military. In 2016 the military allowed women to join the infantry, special forces, and ranger which until previously they were not allowed because of the 1994 Direct Combat Definition. The Definition was placed by the man Leon Panetta the Secretary of Defense in 1994 and it limited women that wanted to join combat roles within the military because of direct combat. Soon after the definition was removed, once again women prove their equality to men when three female soldiers pass the ranger course in august and receive their recognition as ARMY Rangers. 

Everyday women prove their gender equality to men. They prove themselves equal through leadership demonstration, physical perseverance, and intellectual achievements. They authenticate that everyone is human and equally capable of achieving anything they set their minds to. We all live on this world together; therefore, one gender should not be limited by another. Everyone can all achieve a better life and become more successful as a country if both genders work as one and promote equality in all aspects.
