To start, I would like to define what the separate spheres ideology is. It is the belief that men and women operate in separate spheres, roles, or places during their lives. This can be illustrated by the common old conception that women were supposed to stay at home and be raising the children, doing housework, and bearing children for their husband. As well as men being the one who provides for and protects his family and the dominant figure in public. These two stereotypes are considered by many to be sexist and/or offensive.
This ideology is illustrated in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”. At first, it may not seem obvious that this patriarchal way of thinking influences this story. However, Louise Mallard came to the conclusion that her husband’s death was not entirely bad, and that she was free from being underneath a man. She had been married to him, happily I might add, for so long that she forgot what freedom was. She loses all traces of being sad and instead becomes overwhelmed with this new feeling of freedom. She is so overwhelmed in fact that she forgets about mourning. Upon realizing her husband wasn’t dead, she died from the sadness of losing her freedom. Her pitiful heart couldn’t bear the stress of becoming subjugated underneath a man again after tasting true freedom after so long.
Presently, this conception of the man at work and the woman at home isn’t entirely relevant. Although, it still happens but in most cases the woman has no other option or chooses to be this way out of their own free will. It’s even common for the roles from the setting of “The Story of an Hour” to be reversed where the man is the stay at home partner and the wife goes out and provides. It must be said that even though it is normal for women to work alongside men, doing the same profession, no longer having a separate sphere to work in, they still are looked on as inferior to the males by society. Which is completely wrong, I know tons of women smarter and more capable than I am that I wouldn’t be mad about getting a job over me. This idea of women still being inferior to men gravitated from the original separate spheres ideology. So even though we got rid of the separation physically, women still encounter discrimination in the working world through other means. An easy example would be the wage gap and how fields, such as STEM, are still male dominated.
The separate spheres ideology doesn’t affect me directly but I do know that it still lingers around today. Even though most of the big and obvious patriarchal ways of thinking have passed over time, some managed to stay. I believe that with some more time, leaders will make good decisions and this ideology will continue to fade away.
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