The Yellow Wallpaper and Knowing a Society from Within: A Women's Standpoint (Group 2)
GROUP 2
As mentioned in the introduction for Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper is a story about Gilman’s nervous condition. The main character in this story is dependent on her husband John’s schedule on how to lead her life. Her husband John is the one who makes all the decisions and tells her what to do. If she wants to do something such as write which her husband doesn’t think is right she has to do it in hiding. The main character cannot follow or believe in her own ideas and thoughts; this can be seen through many different examples in the story.
First and foremost, the main character believes she is sick but John who is a physician believes it is only a nervous depression. Secondly, there is a difference in what she and John believe is the right treatment. She believes that writing and doing small amounts of work will be good for her but, her husband believes that medicine, air and exercise is the answer. Lastly, she does not like the interior of the house and claims that she initially wanted a different room. However, her husband explained that the other rooms were not fit so both of them take the room John wanted.
This story connects with the next piece Women and Economics where Gilman claims that women are not economically independent rather they are economically dependent on the men in their life. I believe that in The Yellow Wallpaper the main character is not intellectually independent but, is intellectually dependent on her husband John.
My question for the class is in what other ways does Gilman’s piece Women and Economics connect to the story The Yellow Wallpaper?
Gilman: Women and Economics Paragraphs 1-7 - Jaden Lau
Gilman opens by stating that the only way that a woman stands to gain any economic advancement is through the actions of the male; that the luxury items she owns are symbolic of her husband’s earning ability and not her own, with the common opinion being that the woman earns her share in the form of wifely duties.
For instance, if one’s parents were to buy them a BMW, this would not reflect the individual buying power/status of the person, but rather, that of their parents. All things, in nature and society, are economically dependent on one another to some extent. In society, this means the worker earning for his work, and giving an equivalent part of his earnings for what he will receive from another person. Because this is a mutual exchange, the worker maintains his economic independence. For example, if a university student lives at home and his parents pay for utilities and food, then the student is not independent. However, if the student works to pay their rent towards their parents and contribute to groceries/handle their own meals, then this exchange signifies economic independence, though they remain in their parents’ home.
In the same way, Gilman points out that the general opinion is that women make this exchange through domestic labour, though she does not agree. To begin with, the woman is not a formal business partner of the man, nor does she possess the professional skills and training to do so. For instance, a horse may help a man in his labour, but the horse is not an economic factor in the household nor in society especially because it is the man’s property; therefore, a woman ‘helping’ a man to be able to work more is not a satisfactory for economically independent status.
For thought: would you say you’re economically independent or not, and what factors inform your answer?
Gilman: Women and Economics Paragraphs 8-19 - Priscilla Wong
In Gilman’s discussion of the economic status of women, she analyzes the conventional idea of how “the duties and the services of the mother entitle[s] her to support” (137). Gilman suggests that women does not merely spend all her time in rearing children and in fact, perform so much more work than men do. “It is not motherhood that keeps the housewife on her feet from dawn till dark; it is house service, not child service.” Gilman argues that the duties of motherhood is not the factor holding women back from “getting their own living” (138) –to foster their intellectuality and become financially independent – but the expectations and “functional duties” (137) to care for the whole family and household chores. For instance, as more women enter the work force today, they often face a “second shift” after coming home from work to complete household tasks. Moreover, women usually do not get paid by their husbands for housework done at home. However, the domestic labour such as cooking and cleaning could earn them a living if they were to work for another household. This adds to Gilman’s argument of how women are not entirely dependent on and supported by their husbands. Motherhood and maternal duties are often used as excuses today hindering women from entering certain jobs and from advancing in position in a workplace (the glass ceiling) where certain employers expect a mother to take time off work to care for their children. This is evident in our patriarchal society given that paternity leave was not implemented until recent years. The wage gap and the fact that men generally receive a higher salary than women add to the conventional idea of how women are being supported by their husbands. Inevitably, this makes it seem only reasonable for women to exchange their household work to make up for the illusion of economic dependence.
Knowing a Society from Within: A Woman's Standpoint - Barbara Peng
Before she unpacks the woman’s standpoint, Dorothy Smith gives us several pointers to approaching sociology. When we are observing social phenomena and using our ‘sociological thinking caps’, we often lose sight of the relationships that sociologists have with the objects of their knowledge. For example, we can take a prevalent issue like wage inequality and apply our existing knowledge of the discourse in this matter. We do this instead of directly using our experiences of wage inequality to guide our studies. This is problematic because as a result, sociology can become a determinate, authoritative, and privileged discipline to critically study objects. We simply extract our objects of inquiry and then neatly assess, analyze, and draw our determinate conclusions about them.
Smith proposes that the only way to understand a socially constructed world is from within. An instance that comes to mind is Alice Goffman’s “On the Run” ethnographic study where the researcher is herself immersed in the culture of the objects of her study. Being a part of the “in-group” allows her to situate herself and let her direct experiences ground her knowledge. Approaching sociology from “within” makes it a malleable discipline rather than a prescribed and reiterative one.
Smith leaves off with a telling example of how she automatically constructed her own sociological version of others. Smith’s anecdote is one tiny snapshot of what we do everyday, mostly subconsciously. We jump to conclusions and constantly create sociological versions. This lends itself to the constant reproduction and perpetuation of stigma in our society. Perhaps the old cliché, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, does have its significance; for, we cannot let what we see externally and what we know superficially inform us of what is truly the reality.
A Bifurcation of Consciousness P.307 - Tiffany Hanna
Smith analyzes a woman’s standpoint in society and shows how there exists another side of a particular subject matter independent from that of the dominant position of which we must understand as another way of sociological thinking. In order to understand the constructs of a social world, we must become a part of that world. Our knowledge often comes from our own position in the world and how we see it rather than the position of what is being observed. She discusses the bifurcation of consciousness which is the separation of perspectives of a phenomenon being studied into two parts: one that comes from an outside view and the other which comes from within; for example, the direct experience of women in the societies they inhabit versus the dominant view of women held in society. At the same time, she says “We experience the world as largely incomprehensible beyond the limits of what we know in a common sense.” This can be argued with marginalized groups that are subservient to superior groups using examples of gender, race and sexuality. As outsiders of certain aspects of society, we accept the dominant view that is exerted upon us while unknowingly ignoring the direct experiences or perspectives of those who reside within the group or who are subjects of a phenomenon occurring in the world. Smith argues that we must accommodate an alternative way of thinking as sociologists and separate ourselves in order to understand how it is actually experienced by those we observe.
comment: ALEXIS WOLFE I think there is also something to be said for the massive fragmentation of the self required by a this particular system of gender relations. I think the bifurcation of consciousness speaks to the way in which women are constantly berated for falling outside the (extremely limited) boundaries of what it means to be an acceptable/intelligible woman, feminist, mother, wife etc. The roles we prescribe are moralized and insist on a near-constant capitulation to the imagined ideal of woman that exists in the universal but is revealed as inaccessible in the particular. Constant striving to fulfill the idealized expectations of various roles (that women are forced to occupy simultaneously) sees women's soul, self and consciousness fracture and this becomes an infinite loop where the true self is denigrated as it conforms to the will of an androgenic ideal. Even now, mainstream feminism insists on a particular logos, ethos, eros to be held by women in order for a woman to be palatable, relate-able and accepted.
A Bifurcation of Consciousness P.308 - Nayantara Sudhakar
The dictionary definition of bifurcation is the division of something into two branches or parts. Smith strongly argues that in order to best understand our society and the relations within it, we must adopt a dual approach. She suggests that our knowledge about the world should arise from our direct experiences as well as the dominant perspective which is mediated to us by the media world. Currently, sociologists simply have “a sense that the events entering our experience originate somewhere in human intention” but are unable to explain how the intention came to be. This is because sociologists are highly focused on obtaining an objective perspective that they fail to become part of the human experience of a specific subject matter. She uses this as her basis to argue for the partial information that has been used to depict experiences of women in our society. She states, “Women’s direct experience places us a step back, were we can recognize the uneasiness that comes from sociology’s claim to be about the world we live in, and, at the same time, its failure to account for or even describe the actual features we experience.” The “failure” Smith highlights here is due to the lack of direct experiences sociologists have, with the success of it coming from the direct standpoint of women.