Gender Roles In Susan Glaspell's A Jury Of Her Peers

Susan Glaspell’s short story “A Jury of Her Peers” acts as a commentary on early twentieth century American society, when considering gender-based biases in regards to community. In the story, the characters are divided into groups based on their gender, and must use their own experiences to understand each other, through the investigation of the murder of Mr. Wright. The wife of Mr. Wright, Minnie, is the primary suspect, and despite this, the women of the community come together to empathize with her circumstances despite finding incriminating evidence against her. The insight into Minnie’s struggles in her marriage are relatable to the other women, which displays Glaspell’s critique of oppressive gender roles. “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan

Glaspell makes a point of the characters verbalizing their biases against each gender, specifically emphasizing the men’s negative perception of women. For instance, Mrs. Hale's husband states that ‘“Women are used to worrying over trifles’” (Glaspell). As noted in the article “Legal and Moral Justification for Homicide in Susan Glaspell’s ‘A Jury of Her Peers’”, when the women mention their worries for the condition of Mrs. Wright, seeing the mess that has been made in the house, the men are dismissive, “trivializing them and their concerns.” (Tayler 4). This prejudice is further emphasized by the women themselves regarding their own concerns after finding Mrs. Wright’s dead canary, as shown by the statement ‘“It's a good thing the men couldn't hear us! Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary…As if that could have anything to do with--with--My, wouldn't they laugh?’” (Glaspell). Glaspell specifically uses these ideas through dialogue to show that not only do the men hold prejudice against women, but the women also have self-doubt due to these notions of irrationality that have been created by the society in which they live. This idea is further supported by the historical context as well as the story’s general plot. As Stobbs-Wright claims, the “act of killing a husband with unwomanly strength and violence, coupled with the impossibility of justifying this same death, makes this theme of murder a suggestive one for protest against the status quo, especially when combined with the sub-text of the way women are excluded from, or written out of, legal and literary history” (2). Glaspell utilizes the characters’ speech to not only identify the irony of the perception of women in a patriarchal society, but also to suggest the women’s internal conflict with whether or not to make the men aware of incriminating evidence against Mrs. Wright, which subsequently