In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald states "I hope she'll be a fool- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." For a long time society viewed women to be this way. During the progressive era this held true. "A Jury of Her Peers" depicts how women were expected to keep the house in order and represent their husband Women who lived in rural areas during the progressive era were expected to equally share work with their husbands. They were in charge of all of the house work, keeping the house in order, as well as helping out in the barn. At the beginning of "A Jury of Her Peers" Martha Hale is called away from her house to help with the crime scene and the only thing "her eye took in was that her kitchen …show more content…
When walking in to Minnie's house the "women were about to follow the men in through this kitchen door", while this seems to be a small detail it points to the overall theme that the men would go first and expect the women to follow after (Glaspell 258). Similarly, when they did walk into the house the attorney tells the ladies to come up to the fire and "Mrs. Peters took a step forward, then stopped" and stated that she was not cold (Glaspell 259). Even when she did not want to go to the fire her first reaction was to step forward when told to come to the fire, simply listening to the instructions given by a man. At the end of the story the women are left alone in the kitchen where they collect things to take to Minnie. While doing this they find a dead bird in Minnie's sewing things. The bird was killed from its' neck being wrung. This is ironic because that is the same way Minnie's husband was murdered and could be supporting evidence that Minnie killed her husband. The women sympathised with Minnie as the bird must have brought joy to her home and she must have been hurt by and mad at her husband for killing the bird. Because the women feel this way, they choose to hide the evidence from the men as they know they will not understand and will convict Minnie of the murder. The men do not even go through the things the women collect for …show more content…
A few colleges started up for women, and some others began to let women attend. However, at this time few women actually went to college and those who did normally went on to become teachers. Women were looked at as inferior to men intellectually. The country attorney asks Mr. Hale to tell him what he saw when he found Mr. Foster dead the day before and Mrs. Hale "had that sinking feeling of the mother whose child is about to speak a piece." The feeling that is being described is nervousness over the fear that Mr. Hale will mess up, literally being compared to a child. Mr. Hale "often wandered along and got things mixed up in a story"; this detail makes Mr. Hale seem unintelligent. However, even with that being said, in this society his opinion carries a lot of weight, definitely much more than that of a woman. This belief is also depicted when the men are leaving the women downstairs while they go upstairs to investigate the crime scene. When leaving the women the men poke fun of the women saying they "might come upon a clue to the motive" but then questioned "would a women know a clue if they did come upon it?" This shows how women were looked at as uneduated and simply unable to be helpful or use their head. It was believed that women were not capable of knwoing what a clue would even be and definitely not capable of finding one. The men have such a lack of respect for a women's intelligence that