Female Empowerment through Violence in “The Woman at the Store”

Feminine violence against men, while somewhat atypical in society, can be a method through which female empowerment is possible for the individual committing the act. However, female violence against men hurts the status of women in society on the whole. Katherine Mansfield’s “The Woman at the Store” is a short story that depicts the pathetic and depressing lifestyle of a mysterious shop owner in rural New Zealand, and the self-empowerment she attained through murdering her husband.  Through the course of the short story, the store owner is presented to the audience as a woman who has freed herself from the constraints of her abusive husband, thus empowering herself to live independently from her husband and his abuse. However, the description of the woman and the revelation that she murdered her husband is negative in that it reinforces the gender stereotype that a woman cannot live independently from a man, and in this way “The Woman at the Store” is a text which negatively portrays female empowerment.

            The store owner in “The Woman at the Store” is meant to be viewed by the audience as a character who is lives independently of her husband. The store owner claims, “Trouble with me is, he (her husband) left me too much alone. When the coach stopped coming, sometimes he’d go away days, sometimes he’d go away weeks, and leave me ter look after the store” (Mansfield 66), and she is described elsewhere in the text as a lonely woman who runs the store while her husband is frequently away. When her husband is around, he is described as a physically and emotionally abusive man who has “broken the spirit and looks” of the woman. When later in the short story it is revealed that she murdered her husband, there is an inclination that the woman is justified in her actions because her actions liberate her from the oppression that she faced from her husband, and that she is now free to live as she pleases and without the threat of abuse from her husband.

            The seemingly positive message of the freedom attained through violence as a form of feminine self-empowerment, however, is lost in the manner through which she attained her freedom. By murdering her husband as opposed to leaving him, the woman, though now independent, is portrayed as unstable and insane. The woman is described physically as “A figure of fun. Her front teeth were knocked out, she had red pulpy hands, and she wore on her feet a pair of dirty Bluchers” (Mansfield 58) and emotionally as “Mad, of course she’s mad” (Mansfield 61). Though she is free from her husband’s abuse, runs her store, and is a single mother who provides for her child, her physical and mental description as well as the fact that she murdered her husband make her appear as a maniac to the audience. This appearance only furthers the stereotype that women depend on men in life, and cannot live a functional life without men, but instead would exist as physically wretched and emotionally unstable beings without men.

            “The Woman at the Store” by Katherine Mansfield is a short story which reinforces negative stereotypes about women through the physically and emotionally unstable description of the murderous shop owner, who is free and independent of her husband. Though this freedom and independence may seem like positive attributes, they are ultimately examples of how female violence against men is unacceptable in society.