Gender Studies and Feminist Theory, Analysis#6

In the book by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar "The Madwoman in the Attic", the stereotypes of women are examined as they relate to female artists and the"anxiety of authorship"(1929). The feeling that one cannot create something original as an artist, and a woman because it has been done before by men creates the "anxiety of influence"(1929). The theory that women are seen as either an angel or a monster becomes an impediment to becoming an artist in a world dominated by male artists. Gilbert and Gubar point out "It is debilitating to be any woman in a society where women are warned that if they do not behave like angels they must be monsters"(1932). There seems to be no middle ground. Women have been thought to be more emotional than men, hence weaker. This emotional nature historically resulted in "women's diseases" such as nerves, vapors, and frailty and sensitivity. It is interesting to note however that many times women were the ones who held the family together in the toughest of times. One can read any account of the ill fated Donner Party and find that it was many of the women who turned out to be more"hardy" than the men in the group. These women did the necessary tasks to keep people alive as the party was trapped in the snowbound mountains of the Sierra Nevada in the 1840's.
The prevalence of anorexia nervosa in our society today is interesting in the way some women seek to control their life and bodies in the only way that they can, by not eating.Susan Bordo claims that "The emaciated body of the anorectic...has become the norm for women today"(2245).She also notes the incidence of agoraphobia has increased in the twentieth century.This coincided with the beginning of the feminist movement in the 1950's and 1960's and the confusion over the role of women in the home and the workplace. Gubar and Gilbert note that the "cult of invalidism"(1934) exists in upper and upper middle class women who are defined as "sick".It is interesting to note that is less often observed in lower to lower middle class women. In the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", a woman is prescribed a "rest cure" for her nerves and is told not to write to do anything that will tax her mind. This enforced inactivity only serves to unhinge her more and she begins to really lose her mind. As long as this woman stays an invalid, it gives others, [her husband and relatives] a great deal of freedom. Many times when a person who is ill gets well, the dynamic and power shift in the relationship begins to change. In being told not to write and to only rest, the woman in "The Yellow Wallpaper" was kept in a sort of prison from which she began to feel she had no escape.
Works Cited: Leitch, Vincent B. Ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism Second Edition. New York:Norton, 2010. Print. Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight :Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Norton Anthology. Gilbert, Sandra and Gubar, Susan.The Madwoman in the Attic, Chapter Two. Norton Anthology.