In "The Revolt of Mother" and "The Yellow Wallpaper" both protagonists are undermined by their husbands continuously until they rebel against their spouses in outrageous ways.
John, the doctor in Gilman's Wallpaper, tells his wife which room she will remain in during their stay at the summer home and prevents her from writing or expressing her emotions. When she communicates her feelings to him he makes them seem like a joke, repetitively infantilizing her. The nameless woman defies him by secretly writing in her journal at night and eventually (and drastically) rips off all of the wallpaper in her room, crawling over her husband's fainted body, going insane after realizing she's trapped. The husband is defeated and immobile on the floor.
In Wilkins's Revolt of Mother, Sarah's attempt at freedom against her husband is when she moves her family into the barn. Sarah is allowed to work with her hands openly but only if it is for the benefit of her family unlike the protagonist in The Yellow Wallpaper. Similarly to the aforementioned story, Sarah defeats her husband by the end of the plot when he breaks down and cries and has no idea how much thought she had put into this.
It would seem, however, that Sarah and even the nameless woman in Wallpaper's defeat is only temporary because most of the transition to power took place in the husband's absence and that while the men may be physically/emotionally crippled now, the final moments are so open ended that these changes most likely have no permanence. It's insinuated that the men will wake up and snap back to reality and reclaim their patriarchal title. Gender roles are reversed at the end of both stories when John faints like a lady and Adoniram weeps heavily like a woman. Both women are workers and like to use their hands to make things and express themselves through creativity. We see the housewife vs. artist and order vs. creativity constructs emerge.
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