The Turn of the Screw creates clear distinctions between women and men in a number of ways. It distinguishes the expected roles of each gender and their treatment in society. One line that shows the clear divide between male and female is when Miles demands his “own sort” and was told that Flora was his own sort, to which he replied “you really compare me to a baby girl?” He is utterly offended by the comparison as men were made out to me stronger, more powerful, and frankly more useful during the period in which the novel was written.
This novel is highly misogynistic in its format, questioning whether characters are even real due to the Governesses’ “hysteria”. Hysteria was a form of mental disease that was considered to be only contracted by females, making them go crazy and hallucinate. The fact that the men in this story are quick to attribute anything that was a little whimsical to the woman’s hysteria simply because she’s a woman is overgeneralizing women as a whole. It helps perpetuate the stereotype that still exists in our modern world—that women are “crazy”. It is easy to blame a woman’s emotions or speech on the fact that she is a woman instead of actually giving credit where credit is due.
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Another example of females in the story being portrayed as inadequate to males is when they portray the Governess as taking the job because she’s infatuated by the master, and continues to pine over him throughout the story. This plot point shows how women are expected to need a man in their life and live in honor of a man. For a book in the 1890’s, it stays true to the gender roles and expectations of the time. Feminism has come a long way since then, creating equality between the genders, however, it still has a long way to go.
