macksting

“The Yellow Wallpaper”

By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Trigger warning: Gaslighting, cruelty to women, mental illness, mania, misogyny AND I WILL BE FRANK I haven’t read this since college so I don’t remember the others, and I am NOT in a position to change that just now, this has been a hell of a week.

Content warning: Old. Old is not bad, but old has baggage. Nonfiction.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1952/1952-h/1952-h.htm

This is the second time this week Gilman has come up in conversation, and the second time “The Yellow Wallpaper” has come up as a result, but last time we instead were speaking about Herland.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32/32-h/32-h.htm

Content warning: Misogyny, old

“Protofeminist utopia taking place before World War I. If you like steampunk and feminism, you might appreciate this. If you ever liked reading David Brin’s Glory Season, you should probably read this. That’s where the Perkinites come from.”

I’m doubling down on the Glory Season reference. Herland is to Glory Season as inverse to Brave New World is to Cyteen; Cyteen is the utopic version of Brave New World, and Glory Season is a rather complex not-actually-dystopia to Herland.