The privilege of “space” has never been granted neutrally, in fact spaces have always been used to assert dominance, a tool of power that guides who belongs where and who should be kept out. Physically, socially, or psychologically depicted spaces such as households, kitchens, asylums, rest cures have long served as spatial boundaries that are part of the architecture of repression towards women. Yet, in every confined space forced upon them, women have found a way to push back. This constant need to confine and suppress female autonomy, literally or figuratively, and resistance of women has been woven into the fabric of history and a big part of literature. From one of the most haunting depictions of the domestic prison from The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman to institutionalized women for supposed madness, accused witches burned, and silenced woman voices in the new digital age; the idea fueling such actions always have the same backbone: control. This is displaying a devastating power play where gender and space intersect.
The Domestic Prison in The Yellow Wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper tells the story of a woman, who probably would be diagnosed with post-partum depression in the modern world, getting prescribed with a rest cure from her doctor husband to treat temporary nervous depression. At first, she can’t help but hate the yellow wallpaper in the new room they will be staying in for the treatment. Nevertheless the constant confinement triggers an obsession towards the wallpaper. The space – ironically an old nursery – is a domestic prison exhibiting features such as locked doors, barred windows, and movement restrictions through the narrator’s husband and sister-in-law. The sister-in-law is introduced as a natural and enthusiastic housekeeper who is perfectly appealing to the Victorian ideal of women as angels of the house. Being trapped in the room and spiraling into delirium, the narrator can’t help herself but to be captivated by the wallpaper and the women she imagines creeping behind it. Scrapping what’s left of the wallpaper by the end, she manages to get that woman and herself out.
I think that woman gets out in the daytime!
And I’ll tell you why—privately—I’ve seen her!
I can see her out of every one of my windows!
It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.
I see her on that long shaded lane, creeping up and down. I see her in those dark grape arbors, creeping all around the garden.
I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines.
I don’t blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight!
I always lock the door when I creep by daylight.“
Back in the 19th century, domestic spaces were known as maritally significant safe spheres but have been very well abused to use as tools of oppression. The narrator expresses her discontentment with her entrapment, yet, is not taken as a reliable source which is leading to her psychological breakdown culminating parallels between slow vanishing into madness and acceptance of captivity. By the end we can see that even if she breaks out of the “wallpaper” she couldn’t break out of the inherited socio-cultural self-conditioning. This heartbreakingly captivating story highlights how domestic spaces are used as forms of control for women whose intellect and personality extend beyond any type of forced wall, whose desire is to get help if needed but to choose where they belong to on their own.
Institutions as Guises of Care and Rest
There are internal and external spaces that are used to control women. Institutions such as mental asylums, hospitals, convents, and many more served as confinement for so-called “unruly” women. Not because they truly needed to be institutionalized to get better but because they denied certain societal expectations.
Camille Claudel, a successful sculptor and former collaborator of Auguste Rodin, was institutionalized for 30 years although she attempted to prove her sanity more than once. Or from a more contemporary point of view, Nan Goldin’s Sisters, Saints, and Sibyls exhibits the controlled and institutionalized life of her sister who didn’t fit into the societal norms. Her sister Barbara was diagnosed, repressed, and tragically erased by the medical institutions she was handed to.
What was considered as a personal expression of a feeling became hysteria, psychological breakdown, or any type of diagnosis that required supervision provided that the patient was a woman. Treatments used at the time were meant to control rather than to understand the situation or cure the mental instability. Institutionalization became a formidable tool for stripping women of their autonomy.
Witch Hunts and the Exclusion from the Social Sphere
Well before asylums, different societies had different ways of eliminating women they deemed dangerous or disruptive. Public shaming, exile, execution. The witch hunts that evidently mostly targeted women – specifically ones that were living alone, had knowledge on medicine or herbs, were oppositions against the authority – are severe examples of these actions. The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 are one of the most infamous examples of thousands of women tortured, burned, and drowned based on lies and rumors without any real life evidence. Those who did not conform perfectly well to Puritan gender roles, who were widowed, unmarried, or independent created the perfect target group for reflecting social anxieties. This reflection resulted in thousands of innocent women stripped from their place in the social space or deprived from their most basic right to live. The Victorian Era of England had “fallen” and “ruined” women who had ambition, any political opinion, or sexual freedom. Social space has been a tool of control for ages. Echoes of these old actions can be seen in today’s world through different archetypes attributed to women such as “crazy woman”, “hysterical girlfriend”, “unhinged female artist”. The tools of exile have a very dynamic course but the impulse to control and shame women through various spaces persist.
The same way the privilege of “space” has never been granted neutrally, space has also been an important foundation of resistance for women. Women fought for their individuality and place in public for the longest time. Various stories of reclaimed voices, and survivors can be seen through art, literature, media, and history. The act of controlling women has changed mediums but it stems from the same oppression ideal. The spaces that restrict women – physical, institutional, or social – are not just ruins from the past but are ongoing problems. Awareness is the only way for women to gain control of the space they inhabit. Even with the supposed wisdom of thousands of years, women still have to earn every right and opportunity which should have been getting granted equally by now.
Bibliography
Ghandeharion, A. (2016, December). (PDF) women entrapment and flight in Gilman’s The yellow wallpaper”. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318354153_Women_Entrapment_and_Flight_in_Gilman’s_The_Yellow_Wallpaper
Gilman, C. P. (1892, January). The yellow wallpaper. The New England Magazine. Retrieved November 1, 1999, from https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1952/pg1952-images.html.
Notaro, A. (1999). Space and Domesticity in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. DergiPark. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/996000