Women in America were second class citizens during the time that Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper."  Fast forward 125 years and women still face stereotyped discrimination that Wendy Molyneux satirically attacks in her "I Am Sorry That I Didn't Write a Comedy Piece."  Both pieces allow the reader to appreciate the struggles faced by women in their respective time periods but the literary devices used to stress the difficulties are also representative of the degree to which women were being marginalized.  

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's loosely autobiographical piece "The Yellow Wallpaper" deals with women's mental health in the late 19th century and their relegation to the domestic sphere.  During that time, women were seen as being emotionally unstable and generally hysteric.  To "cure" women suffering from any type of mental health disorder, it was common practice to lock them up alone in a room with minimal stimuli available and a high iron diet.  Gilman's story is about a woman that is forced into madness/suicide through this treatment.  The story chronicles the narrator's descent from seemingly normal mental behavior.  She used to write and enjoy socializing (210).  Throughout the story Gilman's protagonist becomes increasingly mesmerized by the pattern on the wallpaper and the woman trapped inside.  Additionally while the protagonist is confined to bed rest, she also begins to furtively hide her writings (which are what the reader is viewing) and they detail her growing suspicion of John and his sister of trying get the woman out of the wallpaper.  Based on Gilman's diction and stylistic representation of the descent into insanity, an alternate interpretation of the ending of the story that ends with the narrator hanging herself is entirely plausible.  Gilman's description of the faces in the wallpaper as having "unblinking eyes" ( and being strangled by the pattern when coupled with her use of the word "suicide" to describe the behavior of the pattern on the wallpaper gives the end of the story a much more ominous ending.  Furthering this trend is the end of the story itself, where the simple explanation for all the peculiarities is to simply chalk them up to the narrator having completed the transition to madness.  But given the fact that Gilman had previously included so much imagery of death and foreshadowed that the house has a hellish feel and smell about it, the end of the story is also open to the interpretation that the narrator has hung herself instead of engaging in the "admirable exercise" of jumping out of the window.  The narrator instead is "securely fastened" by the rope she had hidden in the bed (220).  When the husband comes up to the room she is barely able to speak and he faints as he enters the room and sees her "creeping."  Based on the suicide interpretation of the story, it stands to reason that the narrator's creeping is merely the back and forth swinging of the corpse.  From this interpretation, Gilman paints an extremely bleak portrait of marriage in the late 19th century.  Gilman is positing the idea that death is the only way to escape the patriarchal societal norms that faced women at the time.  Men were placed in places of power over women as husbands and doctors and drove women to madness and/or suicide.  

While that outlook no longer holds true, a patriarchal society still subjugates women to live in the shadow of men.  Molyneux's short response to a call for comedy written by females is perfect example of how women have advanced in society but are still considered inferior and limited in their sphere of interests.  Molyneux uses satire and stereotypes to say that women are too busy with cats, Sex and the City, and clothes to be good at comedy.  The stylistic differences are striking between the two works, with Gilman forcing the reader to interpret her diction and imagery in order to reach the conclusion.  Meanwhile, Molyneux beats the reader over the head with her obvious satire of female stereotypes.  Molyneux then goes on to call out the man that said women aren't funny as a "child pornographer with a fetish for Nazi literature (418)."  The purpose of that closing line is to demean the critic that said that women were not funny.  Molyneux is a comedy writer for the popular animated comedy show Bob's Burgers.  Molyneux's credentials coupled with the genius satire of her piece clearly demonstrate that women are every bit as funny as men.  Stylistically she is drastically different from Gilman.  Gilman was confined by the social standards in the time which would prevent her from denouncing the "rest cure" that would drive sane women to the depths of madness. She couldn't openly call out male doctors and the patriarchy by saying they were sexually dysfunctional unless reading Nazi literature.  Molyneux is able to use the modern levels of socially acceptable comedy to showcase her comedic talent in a way that is as crass as her male counterparts.

Women have historically been at the mercy of men that think they know best.  Be they critic or doctor or husband, men have always subjugated women so that they behave in a way the man finds acceptable.  This standard was challenged in the first wave of feminism that Gilman seems to be attacking; arguing for the women to be able to be treated as an individual with her own worth.  She shouldn't be treated as a sick child that is to be parented by the husband/male doctor.  Molyneux's writing is more of a representation of the second wave of feminism.  The purpose of this brand of feminism is for women to be seen as equals on all fronts. This would mean breaking down the stereotypical roles that confined women during the 20th century, such as watching Grey's Anatomy or having giant walk in closets full of clothes that also serve as space for women to sing when they randomly sad because their emotions are always out of whack.  Both pieces achieve their goals in drastically different rhetorical styles.

