The men's approach to the investigation is based on their experience of murder cases in the past. Very few women during that era were tried and convicted for murder, which means the men would be limited with their experience of dealing with a murderess, if they had experience with that at all. The men looking through their traditional detective magnifying glass are looking for physical evidence that fit their expectations of why Minnie Wright killed her husband. Even though Minnie, like most women of that era, spent the majority of her time in the kitchen, it never occurred to the men to really look around in the kitchen. To the men the kitchen was messy with dirty towels and a broken stove, none of which held any significance to the case at hand for them as Mr. Peters" stated: "Nothing here but kitchen things." They do not see beyond the cheerless home into John Wright's sour nature, nor does the run down furnishing and Minnie's threadbare clothes clue the men into John's frugality. The women instead saw the kitchen as half cleaned with a broken stove that was a burden and the significance of this was not lost on them. This started their intuition of fitting the pieces together of what Minnie's life was like after she married to John. The women see the house as symbolic of not only John and Minnie's characters but their marriage as well.
The clues were perceived very differently by the men and woman and they are; a rocking chair that sagged to one side and the middle rung missing, a half full sugar bag, Minnie's shabby clothes, the half cleaned table, a bad stove, a bird cage with a broken door and the sewing on a quilt Minnie was working on. To the men the items on this list were just everyday mundane items at the Wright's house. To the women these spoke greatly of Minnie's life with John. They were able to look through the items and read the story they had to tell.