Gender Unit 2

A Jury of Her Peers
Susan Glaspell

In A Jury of Her Peers, Glaspell shows how the stereotype of women can be proven wrong. Typically, women are not viewed as intimidating or threatening in any way. Men typically do not believe that women can be capable of harming other people in the way that a man can harm people. However, in A Jury of Her Peers, Minnie Foster is proven to be capable of the heinous crime of killing her husband. She proves to be very intelligent in tricking the police that she could never be capable of harming another human being. Most women are viewed as belonging in the kitchen and tending to household duties. As Minnie is accused of this crime, one of the police officers says that "women are used to worrying over trifles"(Glaspell, 412). This shows that the police officers do not view women as complex people who can be capable of worrying for anything other than their cooking. This assumption is ironic because in this story, the women prove to have more control over the men. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are the ones who find the evidence of the dead bird. They are clever enough to hide this fact from their husbands; consequently, the husbands continue to search for the needed evidence throughout the house. Minnie Foster appears to be the stereotypical housewife, but even her neighbors say that even though they all "live close together", they all "live far apart"(Glaspell, 424).