Leadership and the Humanities Class Blog Posts

The Yellow Wallpaper sheds light on the gender inequality issue in the nineteenth century. It was extremely disturbing to see how the narrator’s husband was controlling all aspects of her life. She even found his behavior at the end to be “queer” which worried and even scared her when she started to go nearly insane and imagine different things about the wallpaper. The author’s mental health became worse due to the fact that society has set certain expectations of women like maintaining a household and raising children and this job was seen as the only thing they are capable of. And because the author was not able to conform to these traditional stereotypes and do the work that is expected of her, her mental health became worse as she was seen as less of a woman in the eyes of society. She saw herself as a “burden” on her husband instead of being his “comfort”. 

What bothered me most was the fact that Gilman obeyed her husband and did not even question him in terms of his diagnosis as she saw him be superior to her; a doctor who knew what is best for her and her health. Women nowadays have gained more rights and empowerment in the West. In the Middle East where I grew up,  the Islamic patriarchal system has forced women to believe that they are given their rights and treated better than other wome under their religion. This upsets me a lot, as almost all Arab women are brainwashed to believe that they are equal to men and do not fight to gain their rights while in reality they are oppressed. I could relate Gilman’s ignorance and this childish state to almost every woman I know back home; unless women themselves are aware that their rights are violated, no actual will happen in this part of the world.

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For the first time I think all year I feel like I had some understanding of the topic of our reading before hand. While having some idea of the reality of gender roles in America today, I did not have the perspective or the understanding of gender roles and the toxicity that existed in the nine-tenth century. It was arguably worse back then than it is today. I think it might feel more prevalent today because for the first time there has been a fair amount of addressing of this issue. Gender roles within households and society is simply horrible. For men, they have always been expected to be successful, brave, and rather emotionless. Women have always been expected to put their husband before them, and their children before him. On top of this they are often seen as fragile and emotional. The problem of mental illness is something that is so severe today, and as the narrator describes in The Yellow Wallpaper, it was back then as well.

Coming from a family with extensive mental illness I was able to really connect with this story. I can feel her pain. I think anytime a writer can enable the reader to enter into the headspace of their characters, they have done something masterful. The societal expectations of both men and women, & husband and wife alone are at great fault for contributing to the unhappiness and dysfunction within relationships and households. I have a great deal of admiration for women, I feel like it is really evident that their role in society does not accurately reflect their values or what they are capable of.

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This reading was really interesting because my views about John changed drastically from the beginning to the end. I think that the first person narration really helps to view the situation from the perspective of John’s wife, and therefore feel the same emotions that she felt in the story. At the beginning of the reading, I felt as though the narrator was a hypochondriac in a way, and was being taken great care of by her husband. It seemed that he was going out and working to provide for the family as well as taking care of his wife while he’s home. She explained that he meticulously keeps track of all her medications and tells her that she must have the “most perfect rest.” However, towards the middle of the reading I start to question his sincerity and start to think of him as controlling over his wife. She seems almost trapped in a way where she deeply cares for her husband but he has a dominance over her that she can’t fight. It appears that almost every aspect of her life is dictated by John. She wanted to go visit her cousins, but John said no.

This makes me wonder if she was ever really “sick” in the first place or if John asserts his dominance and tricks her into thinking that she is ill. This reminded me of Munchausen Syndrome where a person causes someone to deliberately act as though they are ill. John acts as though he cares for his wife and has medical knowledge but seems to need this sort of power in order to feel in control of all aspects of his life, including his wife. Even when his wife feels fine, like when she asks to go visit her cousins, he says no because it’s not good for her, even though she doesn’t feel sick. This psychologically tricks her into also thinking that she is sick. The story escalated very quickly in the short ten pages but the ending wasn’t completely unpredictable based on the series of events that led up to it. It’s interesting to see the man in the relationship playing the role of the care-giver because that seemed to be an uncommon idea not too long ago. However, the way the story depicts it explains that the changed gender roles serves to show that men had a clear dominance and there’s a strong power dynamic between men and women. John as the care-giver was just a way for him to assert control.

 

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The Yellow Wallpaper reading by Gilman gave us a look into the struggles women faced at the time, but also shed light on some stigma around mental health. The first like that really surprised me was when the wife claims that her husband, John the physician, laughs of course at her serious remarks about her health, but claims “one expects that in marriage”. At this point, i notice that the wife struggles with her own mental health, but this issue is brushed aside by her husband. He claims that nothing is wrong, just that she needs to exercise and sleep and she will be fine. However, the wife notes that she feels unreasonably angry sometimes, and her husband, using his job title as a physician as authority, shuts down her concerns.

Next, I thought it was interesting that the wife realizes that those around her believe that her choosing to read and write somehow contributes to her sickness, and she believes she “must not let them find me writing” p. 650.

In terms of the yellow wallpaper, I believe that it is representative of the world around her, and also the world inside her own mind. For example, she begins by expressing her hate for the wallpaper, as she also first discusses her mental health. Next, she gradually begins to become more comfortable with the wallpaper and sees good things about it. I believe this is her struggling mental state taking over her perceptions and reality. Before falling off the deep end, she tries to bring up her struggles to her husband, but her shuts this argument down, even saying that for his sake, for her sake, and for their child’s sake she should not bring up her issues. This is representative of the way that women’s opinions, beliefs, and arguments were quieted throughout history, and they were expected to take care of the house and the family, disregarding their own wellbeing. This process continues as she claims to see patterns in the walls moving, and even a woman behind the wall “trying to escape”. At this point, the woman is stuck. She is not only completely delusional, but the people around her, especially her husband and his sister seem to be completely cut off from her life.

On page 654, she even goes to the extent of saying she is feeling remarkably better, but in my mind this is her mental illness taking over. It happens in the same way that she becomes fond of the wallpaper. Her perceptions are distorted due to her opinions and struggles being silenced and shut off for so long that to some extent, she loses touch with reality, feels disconnected, and is forced to struggle in the battle of her own sanity and wellbeing alone.

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While reading The Yellow Wallpaper, I felt a little disturbed. We are inside the narrator’s journal/diary she keeps hidden from her husband. She is described as having a sort of nervous depression, which her husband, John, who is a doctor, has pretty much diagnosed her with. John controls nearly everything in her life and by the end she said she began to feel scared of him. The extent to which he held power over her, because he was a “superior” because he was a physician and her husband, and simply a man, was just creepy, for lack of a better word. By the end, she became almost completely insane, having imaginations about the wallpaper. 

I found this idea about this control that men have over women in this time period to be interesting. This piece seems to be ahead of its time in this idea which it highlights so clearly. The narrator becomes almost insane because she is forced to assume she is like a child, she is patronized and misjudged by her husband, who in this time period was considered to be superior. This separation of roles in the household and society at the time creates a society where men have so much control over women, and the only thing they can control is their mind, as the narrator does. It’s disturbing to think about the extent to which the subordination of women and gender roles in society back then could affect women. It also makes me wonder how much better things really are today, not necessarily with gender, but in any sense of control. People need to be allowed to express themselves, and not be told they are wrong or don’t know, which happens often now, if not more.

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The narrator in the Yellow Wallpaper is a woman afflicted with severe mental health issues whose problems are not being taken seriously or treated properly by her husband who is a doctor. Her individual story is representative of issues the entire female population faced in the late 1800s when the story was released. The entire story she obsesses over the ugly yellow wallpaper in her bedroom and believes that their is a woman trapped behind it. At the end of the story she rips all the wallpaper off the walls in an attempt to free the women. This trapped woman represents the restrictions placed on women in society and how they feel imprisoned by the rules put in place by the patriarchal society around them. This patriarchal society is represented by her husband who seemingly imprisons her in the house and refuses to allow her to do what she wants under the diagnosis of hysteria. Hysteria was the common diagnosis given to women of the time when they became dissatisfied by their living conditions as the all male medical world believed their reactions to the world around them were unjustified. The woman intends to trap the female figure with a rope, but seemingly fails to do so. She doesn’t fail because she was to slow to catch the crawling creature, but instead once the wall paper is removed she transforms into the newly freed female. The woman she believes to be behind the wallpaper and herself are one in the same. She was attempting to free herself from the boundaries of her oppression by ripping the wall paper down.

The wallpaper comes to represent the prison that women are trapped in by societies rules and that is why the woman obsesses over it. Once she sees the inequality of the world she is incapable of simply ignoring it as her husband wishes. This is similar to feminist throughout history. Once they recognized their subjugated position in the world, they were incapable of turning a blind eye, as the men in power hoped they would, and responded with a desperate need to pursue change. The women embodies this desperate need for change through her constant removal of the wallpaper with her bare hands. She becomes so frustrated by being unable to move the bed, to get wallpaper that she to high to reach, that she actually bites the corner of it which results in pain. This bite does a good job of representing how difficult and frustrating the fight for gender equality has allows been for women as they were forced to appeal to men, who benefited from their oppression, for equal rights.

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I thought that The Yellow Wallpaper gave me a different perspective with Charlotte being sick but being told by her husband, who was a wealthy doctor, told her that she was not sick. Since Charlotte’s husband told her that, it was deemed true. The reader gets to dive into Charlotte’s thoughts when she tells the reader that the worst thing to do is to think about the condition, so she starts talking about her house. It almost takes the reader’s mind off the sickness as Charlotte goes into detail about her home. One is left to think about if this is sarcasm coming from Charlotte or if she genuinely trying to take her mind off it. The hard part about reading this story is how she does not get the help that she needs both mentally and physically because she is a woman. This story dives into the unequal treatment that women had to go through. Charlotte did not stand up for herself when she thought that something more could be wrong with her than just being nervous. She took what her husband said and believed it to be true without debating with him. The relationship between Charlotte and John is just an example of the typical household in the 19th century something that I understood but have not heard of a specific story relating to the matter.

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At first, I was unsure what The Yellow Wallpaper was trying to portray, however the reason quickly came to surface. This story was upsetting to me as it displayed almost a sort of toxic masculinity (of the past) as well as the gender dynamic during this time period. Charlotte clearly had some health problems and things that would nowadays would be concerning to most people. However, her husband John, insisted that she was fine and just needed to be alone and recuperate. She constantly tried to tell him how she was feeling and he always patronized her telling her to stop worrying and that she needed to rest, and that she was wrong in whatever she was feeling because he was the educated doctor, not her.

This is upsetting to me because it was as if she had no control over her body, thoughts, or emotions. It was like she belonged to him and he decided if she was okay or not and what she needed. Throughout the writings, she made it clear that she was not allowed to write and if she was caught she would be in big trouble. Although probably not uncommon for the time, this disturbed me, because a wife was afraid of what her husband might do if she was caught writing. While I am not currently married, I hope that in the future I will not be scared to do things I love in fear of my husband. By the end of her time with John in that house, Charlotte wrote about how he actually frightened her and how he would act very odd. This story put in perspective what it would be like to not only be a woman at that time, but also to be a woman with mental health problems. Scary.

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While reading the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson I was drawn into the world of isolation of the women. The male figures in her life, her husband and brother, were both esteemed Doctors so when they both conclude she wasn’t actually sick that she just had a “hysterical tendency”. Of course that is what was true because the men thought it. Throughout the short story I found myself getting pulled deeper in deeper into her world through the vivid writing and dealing with the issues she was facing. She, ” meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already?”. As a wife her duty in the traditional sense to live solely for the comfort and betterment of her Husband and children lives. In this short story we see how she is human herself and dealing with her own issues. Humanizing women as real people not just something for men. The fact that she cannot fill her tradition role adds to her depression. Because in the past if a women couldn’t fill their role for their husband she was rejected by society. She is deemed almost “crazy” however, as we all have experience with isolation does make people go crazy. Her facilitation with the yellow wallpaper stems from her need for connection and activity. The short story touches on gender inequality. Her husband believes he knows what is best for her because he is a man and “more educated”. He takes charge over her-even when she tries to tell him what is wrong/what is best for her. However, we can see that women deal with problems that men cannot understand. This short story left me wondering, how many women suffered from depression as seen in the short story due to their role is society?

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The first thing that I think of when reading this passage is that the stereotypes for being a doctor is also being a male. Men and women both function and are different. The way the brain works in the female body and the male body are completely different and it seems like John doesn’t exactly have a good understanding of what she is going through. It is tough to see a woman struggle mentally and try to get help and the only advice she is given is basically you are crazy, nothing is wrong. Being told to do nothing is absolutely terrible. The body needs to have an activity to feel better. Physical or mental activity is very important as it releases hormones that make the brain and the body feel better.

What sinks in is the idea that she has to hide her true thoughts from her husband. That relationship doesn’t exactly seem like a strong one. This just shows that there was a point where women had to hide their feelings and thoughts. They had to wear this mask of a completely different person. That is just how it was. It is important now that women are able to speak up and able to expresses their ideas and thoughts. Having to internalize feeling is terrible for the sole and can lead to a huge explosion that could have been avoided id communication had taken place in the first place. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for women to be forced to stay quiet.

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The Yellow Wallpaper was honestly a disturbing tale for me because it shed more light on the toxic gender dynamic during the nineteenth- century. It is obvious through this narration that John, the husband, is assuming he has superior wisdom and maturity over Gilman. He constantly is diagnosing all of her issues, as if he truly knows what is going on with her. He is a physician, but it is clear he has ill intentions by stating she is just experiencing “temporary nervousness”. It’s keeping her ignorant and implementing his power over her. Gilman thinks he is helping her, but he is really just patronizing her.

One line that bothered me was “if a physician of high-standing position, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency- what is one to do?”. This line illustrates that Gilman did not even attempt to question her husband’s credibility; she did not take it upon herself to dive deeper into what might be wrong with her. Women at this time had very limited individuality, and just went along with what the husband wanted. Gilman is kept in a state of ignorance, and throughout the narrative, she remains in a childish state where she can not stand up for herself.

 

I think in today’s society, we have made significant strides in empowering women and bringing women into the workforce (especially in male-dominated industries) and out of the domestic space. This toxic power dynamic between husband and wife is not nearly as prevalent today, and I am very grateful for that.

 

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I thought this reading was a very interesting way of portraying women’s suffrage. The story portrayed John, a male, who doesn’t allow her to do much or leave. He says she has depression and doesn’t allow her to interact with many people. This relationship and the control John has over her, demonstrates the relationship between men and women during this time. She also keeps her thoughts behind this wall which demonstrates how during this time, women couldn’t be outspoken about their private lives. John keeps telling her that her depression will get better here and she shouldn’t leave, but deep down all she wants and needs is o go out in public and have people around her.

The other thing I found really interesting was the way the wall-paper was described throughout the story. She mentions wanting it being like metal bars in front of the wall. The first thought that came to my mind was that she feels as if she is in prison. She is not able to leave and do what she wants to do, or have the same rights as a man, which in a way is similar to the way prisoners don’t have the same rights as people who aren’t incarcerated. She also mentions the shadows on the wall portraying a woman trying to escape, which reminded me of her situation. At the end, she says “I’ve got out at last, and I’ve pulled off most of the paper so you can’t put me back!” To me this was her way of standing up for herself and other women, as well as her saying she was done being scared of her husband or of speaking out. Reading this perspective showed me why women fought so long for their right to vote.

While 72 years is an extremely long time, women were fed up, but they also had a different perspective toward the end. The second generation of suffrage’s were different. The video explained the reasoning for this as women who were already fighting for their rights who had kids, raised their daughters to feel strong and empowered. Their daughters then took on the role of fighting for women rights as well. One line that stuck out to me in the videos was when Mott said, “not every man is a tyrant, but the law gives every man the right of tyranny.” I thought this portrayed the importance of women fighting for their rights because while not every man treats women with little respect, the law makes it okay for them to. Taking that right away from men was so important, not only because it made women equal, but also because it was inevitable, the same way ending slavery was inevitable.

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I think there is a very interesting relationship between “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” and the videos about women’s suffrage in America.  “The Yellow Wall-Paper” shows the negative effects of forcing people into isolationism.  I find it interesting how the narrator of “The Yellow Wall-Paper” emphasizes how women can feel as if they are trapped behind metal bars.  I think it is interesting how this connects to the women’s suffrage movement.  The inability to vote and express personal opinions in society can give off the feeling of being trapped.  I see this as the major reason why women were able to unite across the country to try to create a better world for women to come.  The video’s show how difficult this was, but after reading “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” I see why this movement was absolutely crucial for all women in America.

The video’s talk about how the constitution never explicitly stated women could not vote or have the same rights as men.  The 15th amendment debatably set women back a step by allowing black men to vote before women.  I personally see this as another step towards equality for everyone, but I see how this could be worrisome.  This concept makes me wonder about the comparison between the female equality issues and racial equality issues.  Black men were able to vote before women, but how does this impact inequality today.  In theory, this would lead people to believe black men would have an advantage in today’s society over women, because they received more rights earlier on.  Based on a Pew Research study on gender and race wage gap (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/01/racial-gender-wage-gaps-persist-in-u-s-despite-some-progress/ ) black men do not out-earn white women in America today.  This makes me believe that females have more rapidly overcome inequality than racial minorities in America.  We definitely have work to do in achieving equality for all groups, so it is important to understand what is happening in America today in order to achieve a greater America for both females and racial minorities.

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The Yellow Wall-paper was a refreshing yet eerie form of reading that calls for imagination and an extent of suspension of disbelief to connect to the narrator. Her husband, John, is a physician and he says she has nervous depression and he prevents her from doing any work or interacting with too many people. She journals her thoughts and feelings which she has to hide from everyone because they don’t like her wasting energy and she does not want to show her true feelings to anyone. The division of gender, especially within marriage, is very prevalent within this story. John forbids her from doing any sort of work and never really allows her to do activities or things to stimulate her mind to help her get better. He convinces her and himself that he knows what is best for her and suppresses any of her fantasies or freedom of thought. This causes her to fall back into her own secret fantasy world where she obsesses over the yellow wallpaper and what she thinks may be behind it. This is where she finds her own control and thoughts that she keeps hidden from her husband’s judgement and patronizing. 

I thought an interesting metaphor throughout the story was the shadows and stains on the wall that she thought looked like a woman trying to creep out was actually herself being constrained from her imagination and true feelings. Her insanity at the end of the story is a result of her being repressed from any creativity or imagination. She is forced to make it seem as if she is getting better and is grateful for her marriage when in reality it is making her more sick. This connects to the traditional role of women in marriage and in society. Women are supposed to suppress any emotional or creative outlet and to fall subordinate to the husband or men in society. They were expected to do all of the easy work of taking care of the house and children which was supposed to leave her no time for herself.

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The short story The Yellow Wall-Paper was extremely unsettling and eerie to read, especially as you got closer to the end. It progressed slowly but surely throughout the whole story, and almost left the impression that you ( the reader) is losing your mind as well. It is a really captivating piece and I vaguely remember reading it when I was in high school. However, I think it is striking me more now and making a bit more sense as I have learned more context about women in this time period and how their lives were. It was a really sad story to read, however at the same time it made me feel like the narrator kind of won in a sick, dark way in the end. Obviously, her deterioration of mental illness is tragic, however, the narrator herself perceives it as some sort of self-discovery and an almost victory over her abusive husband. At the beginning of the story, she vocalizes her doubts and her unhappiness regarding John and his dismissive treatment of her mental illness, however she can’t do anything about it. She is afraid of her husband and is quite skeptical about his logical reasoning, but her inferior position in society and in the domestic sphere limits her from acting on these thoughts. The narrator is ahead of her time period and she is aware of the mistreatment against her, not only from her husband but society at large; this results in her rebelling against the gender roles of her time period in many ways and an unfortunate escalation of her mental illness.

First, I thought it was interesting how she had to hide her writing from John and Jennie because it reminded me of the female writers in colonial times and how the Puritan women weren’t supposed to disclose information in the public sphere about their personal lives. The narrator doesn’t even seem to want to write as much as she is, however it is one of the only ways she can rebel against the domestic constraints against her and help ease her mind, especially because she can’t leave the property. She made it clear that she wants to experience “society and stimulus” and go out into the public sphere (p. 648). I also found it relevant when she mentioned going back to work that she put the word in quotation marks, so I am assuming that she is referring to the domestic work in the household and taking care of her baby. The narrator doesn’t want to live the life that she is being forced to live and dreads doing the domestic work because it makes her feel “nervous” (p.652); she feels detached from her baby, which was probably both a result and cause of her depression. She explains the wallpaper as bars on the walls, which signifies that she believes she is being imprisoned in this life of submission and neglect. She feels trapped by her husband and society and this leads to a complete downward spiral of depression. It was devastating to read because it made me think of the women throughout history who felt imprisoned and trapped by men and society due to the negligence of women as smart, capable, and independent members of society. The number of women whose mental illnesses were probably exacerbated by this lifestyle of inferiority and indifference is heartbreaking, and it is sad to think that society isn’t even that advanced today to reach total equality for women.

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I had heard of people comparing the Spanish Flu to COVID-19, but I never really cared to look into it. It is not like the Spanish Flu was ever part of any curriculum I had in school or anything I ever learned about, so I was shocked to find how similar the two actually where. What was most interesting to me was the similarities between the government administration.

Trump, or anyone in his administration, could’ve easily just read the history books and known what NOT to do. Often, history serves as a guide, on what to do and on what not to do. This pandemic was an open note quiz, yet we are still failing. Trevor Noah brought up a great point when he jokingly said, “masks are still the only thing we have come up with.” It got me thinking about the fact that humans are so destructible. We have advanced so much socially and technologically, yet a virus can still just come in and turn the world upside down.

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I don’t really remember learning about the Spanish Flu of 1918, even though it was the world’s most recent large pandemic. Since the world did not the modern healthcare treatments to deal with the flu, the average life expectancy for young people went down exponentially by decades. Many doctors at the time of the Spanish Flu over prescribed aspirin, which led to poisoning, but that did not stop other people from continuing to take lethal doses as well from the fear of the pandemic. We are currently in a pandemic right now and quite frankly it is kind of concerning to see all the similarities between these two pandemics.

As a society we should have learned from the Spanish Flu of 1918, but apparently we did not since we are repeating some of the same mistakes from all those years ago. For example in misinformation really did not help the situation way back then, and now we are suffering from misinformation from scientific leaders in a rushed attempt to give the people information about the virus. In Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, parallels between the two pandemics were shown. The video also proved how current administration is failing to address the same problems from 1918 as well as failing to flatten the curve. While the reading simply informs us about the Spanish Flu of 1918 and how deadly it truly was to the people at the time.

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Although our generation always hopes and claims that we will be the generation to learn from history’s mistakes and make better decisions in the future when we are in positions of power, the readings and video for today make it pretty clear that we have not quite lived up to this expectation. I knew that there was some relative similarities between the COVID-19 pandemic and the Spanish flu, but I had no idea the extent to which those similarities went until preparing for Monday’s class. Firstly, I didn’t know that mask mandates were implemented over 100 years ago, and based on the outcry it has caused in America today, I never would have expected that this was something we had done before. I find it intriguing and also alarming how similar the situations have been in regards to protesting the use of masks – it’s such a small price to pay for saving so many lives, and that should be especially obvious today given the prevelance of media and news coverage that keeps people updated at all times and the information available to us with the tap of a button. I wasn’t aware of Woodrow Wilson’s attempted coverup and downplaying of the coverup, very similarly to Trump’s. Although we are not technically in wartime as serious as WWI right now, I would consider Trump’s terror campaign to attempt reelection and the awful tactics he has used to garner support as well as the divisive and hostile political climate he has created as a type of wartime. He uses the pandemic as a political ploy to “keep people calm” so that he can get reelected, just as Wilson tried to downplay the pandemic to keep people patriotic in the face of the war. I never knew this about Woodrow Wilson and I have never seen this information anywhere despite doing extensive research on Woodrow Wilson for multiple college papers, and I find it alarming how easily this was hid in history. It makes me worry that in the future, Trump will be portrayed in the history books as much better than he actually is and many of his selfish motives and desires will be covered up. I want future generations to learn an accurate representation of history, unlike what many of us have learned up until this point. I hope that Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic will not be swept under the rug, and that everyone will hear how the President of the United States cared more about his public image and getting reelected than keeping 215,000+ Americans from losing their lives.

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Like many of the readings we have been assigned this year, History.com’s description of the Spanish Flu of 1918 left me frustrated. As Trevor Noah mentioned, it doesn’t make very much sense that 100 years later, the most prudent medical response to a global pandemic is to cover your face with a mask. This (should be) outdated response to a pandemic also resonates with the similarities of problems we face as a society. For example, the article notes that doctors overprescribed aspirin in dosages that were too high as a response to the Spanish Flu. This ineffective diagnosis draws parallels to ineffective medical responses to COVID-19, many of which were endorsed by President Trump. There was also the dilemma of the “anti-maskers” who protested the suggestion of wearing masks in order to prevent a pandemic. It is striking that, 100 years later, there is still a large segment of the United States population who believes that masks are an infringement of their civil liberties rather than a responsible response to a contagious virus.

In addition to medical concerns surrounding the Spanish Flu and COVID-19, there were economic concerns. While this frustration is justifiable, I become frustrated when people prioritize the economy over human lives. My frustration is exacerbating by the fact that the economy cannot recover without the stabilization of the health crisis. This disparity leads me to believe that economic concerns with viruses are manifestations of political narratives, not true economic influences. This inconsistency does not come as a surprise in the era of President Trump, but I wonder if there was a similar frustration with complaints regarding the economy during the Spanish Flu of 1918.

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The Spanish Flu of 1918 was widely unknown to me before today’s reading and video. The Spanish Flu was the world’s most recent large pandemic, claiming upwards of fifty million lives in a few short years. The parallels between the COVID pandemic and the Spanish Flu are clearly discussed by Noah in the video, but the article was originally published in 2010 and mainly focuses on the Spanish Flu. I think it is important to understand the biases of the media outlets distributing the information. We have learned how important it is to know your source because the same fact can be interpreted in different ways to get a different reaction from the reader. The video is from Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, which is definitely a left-biased source. The point of the video was to show the parallels between the two pandemics and how our current administration has failed to address the same problems from 1918 and properly flatten the curve. Noah uses humor to poke fun at different aspects of the situation, but the stance is clearly left. The Spanish Flu article by History.com was not as politically charged because it was not originally written during the current pandemic and was solely written to inform readers about the Spanish Flu.

The Spanish Flu was much more deadly than I thought prior to reading this article. One staggering way to illustrate the severity of this flu is to look at the average life expectancy in countries in 1918. All over the world and in the US, the average life expectancy plummeted by decades due to the exponential increase in deaths of young people. The world was becoming globalized and interconnected but did not have the modern healthcare treatments to deal with the flu. It amazes me how a pandemic can affect the world so drastically but we still struggle to learn from our mistakes. Americans must educate themselves on the Spanish Flu and see that they practiced social distancing and wore masks over 100 years ago. When state governments failed to properly deal with the pandemic, like in Philadelphia, the consequences were deadly. This is a prime example of why studying history is so important because learning from history can prevent future problems.

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