lings, strength and weakness of women are being continually discussed, and one of the favorites of the disputants is the last named subject&emdash;woman's physical weakness. By those who deprecate the change in the position of women, their unquestioned endurance, which has enabled them work their lives long at the ceaseless cares and labors of housework, with the cares and labors of maternity as well, is held to belong only to those special tasks; and the "nervous breakdown," which is more conspicuous when the sufferer is in business, is assumed to be a consequence of that business. (67-68)She challenges the notion that though women are physically strong enough to carry the burden of childbirth, yet they are viewed as incapable of the strength of character necessary to work outside of the home. In this passage Gilman is challenging the prominent Dr. Weir Mitchell's belief that hysteria, the "nervous breakdown" of women, was caused when women attempted to do the work of men. According to Dr. Mitchell, the "nervous breakdown" occurred when women were unable to handle their own physical limitations.Dr. Mitchell developed a "rest cure" which he believed cured hysterical women. Mitchell's "rest cure" was based on the premise that women were physically inferior to men. He believed that hysteria was caused by a woman's inferior constitution. His "rest cure" consisted of ceasing all of the woman's mental and physical labors. Mitchell believed that women should not seek higher forms of education because their bodies couldn't handle the stress. He explains his reasoning in his essay "Wear and Tear":It were better not to educate girls at all between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, unless it can be done with careful reference to their bodily health. To-day, the American woman, is to speak plainly, too often physically unfit for her duties as a woman, and is perhaps of all civilized females the least qualified to undertake those weightier tasks w...
