Charlotte Perkins Gilman's the Doctor

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman makes it pretty clear how she feels about marriage. She says a wife should be expected to be laughed at when she is married by her husband because women are silly and flighty and prone to hysteria. And so he's kind of set up as the antagonist, even though, you know,Because she's so unreliable, it's difficult to tell whether he has ill will toward her or not.

We double-dip a bit in this week's show, reading two short stories and proving that you don't have to have a ton of time to read something thought-provoking. The theme is "female authors writing about controversial-at-the-time ideas," and the stories are The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.

One is about a misdiagnosed "hysterical" woman slowly going insane through lack of mental stimulation, one is about a seemingly innocuous small town that is slavishly devoted to its own traditions. Both remain subversive and retain their impact even today.

Oh yeah and we also talk about which grocery store animal mascot would win in a fight.

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