The story revolves around the women's decisions. Why is this ironic? A Jury of Her Peers.

It is ironic that the story revolves around the women's decisions because throughout the narrative, the male characters mitigate the importance of the women and the kitchen.

As it turns out, the evidence is all in the kitchen. While Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, who has

[T]hat look of seeing into things, of seing through a thing to something else....

When they look around the kitchen, they understand the difficult life Mrs. Wright has been leading. That Mrs. Wright has been gravely disturbed is evinced in the pieces for a quilt that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters discover. For, they notice that some of the stitching is neat, then it becomes erratic.

Their eyes met--something flashed to life, passed between them, then,...they seemed to pull away from each other. 

As Mrs. Peters searches in the cupboard for paper with which to wrap Mrs. Wright's shawl, apron and other clothes she wanted, Mrs. Hale compares the erratically sewn piece to the neat others, noticing that the difference is "startling." In the meantime, Mrs. Peters discovers a birdcage. The women notice that the door to the cage is broken. Then, when they search for quilting pieces so that Mrs. Peters can bring them for Mrs. Wright to work on, they discover a pretty little box containing a canary, whose neck has been wrung.

..again the eyes of the two women met--this time clung together in a look of dawning comprehension, of growing horror.

At last the women speak. Mrs. Hale rues not coming to visit more. She wonders what it would be like not to have any children around. 

"No, Wright wouldn't like the bird....a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too.

...."If there had been years and years of--nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still--after the bird was still."

Certainly, the women control the outcome of the search of the house for evidence. They have found the motive; they have discovered the evidence. Yet, when Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale hear the men coming, they pull back the quilting and Mrs. Hale hides the box with the dead bird in her big coat pocket, acting as the jury of Mrs. Wright's peers.