Kate Chopin's short stories often include male and female gender roles that are sometimes challenged by the female characters in the stories.  Most of her short stories, including "Desiree's Baby" and "The Story of an Hour,"  show females that undergo a transformation from weak and dependent on their husbands to stronger, more independent women..  Desiree from "Desiree's Baby" and Louise Mallard from "The Story of an Hour"  are examples of women changing throughout the story.  Kate Chopin's short fiction also often incorporated "resistance to patriarchal discourse," as discussed in Martha J. Cutter's essay.  Still, some critics will always disagree with other critics, as does Karen Simon in her peice, "Kate Chopin on the Nature of Things".
    Much of the criticism on Kate Chopin's works has focused on the race and ethnicity aspects in her writing. However, a few critics choose to write on the gender roles and feminism present in her works of literature..  These authors offer different perspectives that should assist the reader in analyzing the presence of gender roles and feminism in Kate Chopin's short stories.
Cutter, Martha J.  “Losing the Battle but Winning the War:  Resistance to Patriarchal Discourse in Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction.,”  Legacy 11 no. 1.  (1994):  17-24.

     Using examples from Chopin’s short fiction, Martha J. Cutter explains how Chopin’s short stories change from patriarchal to include more powerful, decision-making females.  In Chopin’s early works, she “depicts women’s inability to voice their own experiences” (17).Cutter discusses Chopin’s tendency to, in her early works, create female characters with resistant voices, but those voices are unheard.  However, in her later stories, Chopin creates “more active and more vocal” females” (17).  Nevertheless, Chopin pays a price with these new, more audible characters.  Cutter says that publishers refused to publish many of Chopin’s later works, and critics often were not supportive of Chopin’s new heroines. Since Kate Chopin supported herself with her writing, Chopin’s answer to the destructive criticism was to “become less open and direct, more covert and inscribed” (18). Cutter continues to discuss Chopin’s “resistance to patriarchal discourse” (17).  She claims that Chopin “sometimes depicts the way patriarchal forces undercut female voices by labeling them ‘mad’ or meaningless’” (21).

Elfenbein,, Anna Shannon .  "Desiree's Baby".  Women on the Color Line:  Evolving Stereotypes and the Writings of George Washington Cable, Grace King, Kate Chopin.  Charlottesville:  University Press of Virginia, 1989.  126-131.

    Anna Shannon Elfenbein comments on "Desiree's Baby" in this chapter of the book .  She says that race is only one issue explored in the story and along with race, Chopin investigates the concept of "Armand's power over women" (126).  The author explains Desiree's powerless situation : her "unresolved ambiguity about her racial identity" (127)..  Elfenbein also says that Desiree's "very life depends on the whims, social class, and race of her husband"  (127)..  Elfenbein points out that Desiree's happiness only comes from pleasing her husband.  Armand and Desiree's marriage is a victum "of Armand's distatrous urges, his presumption of his right to impose his will on slaves and women"  (129).  She also discusses Armand's joy at having a son instead of a daughter.  The author explores the irony of the story through Desiree's name.  Her name means "desired" but she was neither desired when she was born nor when she dies.  Desiree is totallly powerless as a "result of the life-and -death power of the husband in her society" (131).

MacDonald, Erin E.  "Necessarily Vague:  Kate Chopin's Gender-Awakening"  5 Dec. 2001.
http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/macdonald.html
    In her essay, MacDonald writes that Chopin "questions fin-de-siecle gender roles"(1)..  The main character is looking for a role.one that is neither wife nor mother.  This role is not typical of most women and therefore defies gender roles.  She longs to leave the patriarchal society of her family.  MacDonald continues to say that "society and religion, as forms of patriarchy, blind women to the restrictions of their gendered identities"  (3).  The author also believes Chopin to be a modern feminist.  She allows Edna to "exchange roles of power with men" (7)..

Papke, Mary E.  "Mary E. Papke on 'The Story of an Hour'".  Kate Chopin:  A Study of the Short Fiction.  New York:  Twayne Publishers, 1996.  132-134.

    Mary E. Papke investigates the reaction of Louise Mallard to the death of her husband.  When Louise learns her husband has died in a train accident, "her response is atypical" (132)..  She cried upon hearing the news, readily accepting it.  The author also examines the two "selves" of the main character:  "the social self - Mrs. Mallard - and the private, female self - Louise" (132)..  Louise feels completely free when she is alone in her room after hearing about her husband's death..  After her husband's death,, Louise realizes she will "eventually revel in the 'monstrous joy' (353) of self-fulfillment,"  a freedom she has not know  prior to her husband's death..  However, the irony of the story is that Louise's husband has not died..  In fact, when he comes home to Louise, his arrival ultimately kills her.  Papke remarks that "what murdered her was, indeed, a monstrous joy, the birth of the individual self, and the erasure of that joy when her husband and , necessarily, her old self returned" (134).  Papke ends the article by saying, "Chopin seems to be saying, there lies self-oblivion if only the individual changes and not the world" (134).

Simon, Karen..  “Kate Chopin on the Nature of Things.”  Mississippi Quarterly,  Vol. 51 Issue 2  (Spring   1998)            243-253.

     Karen Simon disagrees with most critics of Kate Chopin. She begins her article by saying that most critics center on a “woman’s struggle to achieve self-hood” in Kate Chopin’s works. (243).  However, she thinks that focusing only on the aspect of gender greatly confines the capacity in Chopin’s works.  Simon explains the comments of most critics and analysts by saying that they believe Edna Pontellier kills herself either because “the patriarchal conventions of her society restrict her freedom, {2} or because the ideal of selfhood that she pursues is a masculinely defined one” (243).  The article further explains the story of The Awakening, without the limits of gender barriers.

Verastegui, Amari. "My Perspective on Susan Glaspell".  29. November 2001.      http://www.tcnj.edu/~verasteg/viewssg.htm

     In her article, Amari Verastegui examines the similarities in the gender roles in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby”.  She claims both Minnie from “Trifles” and Desiree from “Desiree’s Baby” “initially conform to conventional female roles by striving to be nurturing and obedient wives” (1).  This initial conformity changes after Desiree gives birth to a mulatto baby.  Armand, her husband, is furious because he believes Desiree’s race has altered the color of their baby.  Therefore, Desiree must decide whether to “live in constant fear, or separate completely” from Armand (1).  Verastegui also says that Desiree receives independence by leaving Armand and traveling to her mother’s home.  With her child in her arms, Desiree has achieved freedom from Armand.  The irony of the story is that Mrs. Aubigny, Armand’s mother, is the sole person who knows the truth behind Desiree and Armand’s mixed child.  Mrs. Aubigny, a female character, has the power to “alter the social, racial, and gender conventions of the time” (2).