Philosophy 2044F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Elaine Showalter, Female Hysteria, Virago Press
13 Jun 2018
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(3) What role does gender play in the history of hysteria and how might non-binary
persons fit in that history?
Genderqueer, also termed non-binary, is a catch-all category for gender identities that
are not exclusively masculine or feminine—identities which are outside the gender
binary and cisnormativity. Genderqueer people may express a combination of
masculinity and femininity, or neither, in their gender expression.
Excerpts from Showalter, Elaine. (1985). The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English
Culture 1830-1980. London: Virago Press. Ch. 6 ‘Feminism and Hysteria (145-164), ‘Male
Hysteria (167-194).
Feminism and hysteria:
- One defense in the past was to label women who demanded access to universities,
professions and vote as mentally disturbed. Hysteria was the one mental disorder that was
most widely and strongly identified with the feminist movement
- Both clinical observation and sexual prejudice contributed to this association
o Doctors noticed hysteria was apt in young women who were especially rebellious
o Hysterical patients were likely to be more independent and assertive than “normal
women”, “exhibiting more than usual force and decision of character, of strong
resolution, fearless of danger”
o It was thought that rebelliousness could produce nervous disorder and its
attendant pathologies
- In some cases, radical women who challenged the norms of feminine conduct were
actually committed to lunatic asylums
- Darwinian Psychiatry undoubtedly intimidated many feminists with its prophecies of
hysterical breakdown for women who crossed their destined roles
- Staying within their roles didn’t offer women protection from hysteria either
- The first of great European theorists of hysteria was Jean-Martin Charcot
o Said hysteria had psychological symptoms
o Proved that hysterical symptoms were genuine and not under conscious control of
the patient
o Proved that hysterical symptoms also occurred in men and not simply related to
vagaries of female reproductive systems
o But even for Charcot, hysteria remained symbolically, if not medically, a female
malady because majority hysteria patients were women, were like celebrities
mentioned in books, were hypnotized and exhibited at his popular public lectures
o Charcot’s hospital became an environment where female hysteria was perpetually
presented, represented, and reproduced → he made extensive use of camera, took
pictures of hysterical women, published them, conducted photography workshops
▪ Reliance on visual aids
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o Behavior of Charcot’s hysterical stars i.e. hysterical women was theatrical and
rarely seen outside the clinical settings→ many thought such performances to be
fraud or imitation or coached beforehand → so a dramatic increase in hysteria
observed in Charcot’s time
o An example is of a girl called Augustine who was photographed again and again,
developed hysteric symptom where she began viewing everything in black and
white and became very violent, eventually escaped, here escape could have bee
predicted but Charcot didn’t pay attention to what she said
- It was also concluded that repressed emotion could cause hysteria e.g. is one case in
which woman was hypnotized but repressed memories came to surface and with them her
symptoms of hysteria disappeared one by one
- Freud and Breuer saw the repetitious domestic routines including needlework, knitting,
sickbed nursing, to which bright women were usually confined, as causes of hysterical
sickness unlike other English psychiatrists who believed rebellion against domesticity
was pathological and causing hysteria → women had to amuse themselves by fantasizing
as they wanted to escape the monotony and torture of boredom
- Freud also links hysteria with bisexuality where the hysteric identifies with members of
both sexes and cant choose one sexuality
- Hysteria seen as private, ineffectual response to the frustrations of women’s lives
- Silence seen as a key concept in hysteria as hysterics have lost speech
- In Freudian model, masculinity and femininity were not simply biological imperatives
that naturally shaped male and female personalities but rather cultural constructs.
Psychoanalysis didn’t judge hysteric as weak or bad but saw hysteric’s symptoms as
product of unconscious conflicts beyond the person’s control. Psychoanalysis was
attentive to the process of therapy, recognizing fantasies that therapist and patient might
project upon each other. So, patient became an active if not an equal partner in the cure
- Same trends across England where males suppressed voices of women. An example is
hunger strikes of militant women prisoners in service of a feminist cause at Holloway
Gaol, were eve forcibly fed
- *the talking cure only entered English psychiatric practices when it became a widespread
malady of men and when the Great War was experienced. Not feminism but shell shock
initiated the era of psychiatric modernism
(1) Do you agree that it is true and useful to say shell shock is a variety of ‘male hysteria’
and that it is helpful to view modern post traumatic stress disorder in that light?
(2) What does the theory of male hysteria reveal about our cultural assumptions about the
emotional life of the Western male?
Male hysteria:
- A number of cases of mental breakdowns among men were observed during world war 1
era
o One soldier had shells bursting near him which impaired his vision, taste, smell
o Some others faced same symptoms after shell explosions along with loss of
memories while not being physically injured
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