Female Hysteria In The 1920's

One major influence to the short story was the aforementioned condition known as neurasthenia. It was first identified in the early 19th century and became a popular diagnosis primarily among women of that time. It was characterized with symptoms that included weakness, irritability, dizziness, and fainting, as well as emotional instability. An ancestor to this condition was another well-known, women associated diagnosis, Hysteria. One would assume that these conditions would relate on a psychological level rather than a

Hysteria was one of the class diseases of the 19th century…for centuries hysteria has been seen as characteristically female- the hysterical woman the embodiment of a perverse or hyper femininity…and in [the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s…physicians reported a high incidence of nervous disease and hysteria among women who felt overwhelmed by the burdens of frequent pregnancies, the demands of children, the daily exertions of housekeeping and family management (Smith-Rosenberg, 1972, 652, 653, 657).

Until the medical breakthroughs that we have made in the modern day, psychology as a science was not fully understood. Modern technology has given us a clearer idea of psychology, but in the past there was less known about the science. This alongside a predominantly male medical discourse led to a medical diagnosis in many women called hysteria. Female hysteria was a medical diagnosis given to specifically women as far back as the ancient Greek civilization. Hysteria started as a supernatural phenomena, but as medicine evolved it would be described as a mental disorder, (Tasca). Hysteria. in actuality, is an absurd and fabricated diagnosis that institutionalized and discriminated countless women. The way it makes a women feel, and the fact that it strips a woman of any sort of free will is a sickening display of blatant misogyny. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman perfectly displays not only the misogyny, but the torture a woman must face trapped under a hysteria diagnosis. Hysteria as a diagnoses fails to effectively treat many women, instead leading to the mistreatment and wrongful institutionalization of women.

Hysteria was the “go-to, catchall diagnosis” for all women, consisting of any “problem” including, but not limited to, nervousness, faintness, loss of appetite, (lack of) sexual desire, headaches, insomnia, muscle spasms, and trouble-making. For centuries, literature portrayed as submissive and obedient to men and oppressed by society, culture, and even men. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman presents readers with a story of a woman suffering from depression, possibly post-partum, but whose remedy is “rest cure,” a treatment invented by Silas Weir Mitchell for neurasthenia involving isolation and rest as a cure for hysteria in all its forms. The Yellow Wallpaper is a narrative concerning the gradual demise of the mental stability of an unnamed, newly married upper-middle class woman in late nineteenth century rural America. Gilman uses psychological terror to not only portray the narrator’s fall to insanity, but also to shed light on the rather unfortunate role of women in the institution of marriage. The narrator’s husband, John, is a physician who firmly expresses disbelief in his wife’s claims of depression. From the beginning of the story, the reader can tell immediately that the narrator has absolutely no voice. John assures her and others that nothing is wrong but “temporary nervous

These pictures represent the “new women” of the 1920`s. One of the many things the 1920`s is known for is the “new women”. The “new woman” was a feminist ideal, where they spent a lot of their time protesting for the right to vote, and be able to have the same jobs as men. The first picture in the collage shows women who are holding a banner that is telling the president that women deserve liberty. It took a lot for the 19th amendment to be ratified, including a lot of protesting to get people's attention. The women of the 20`s wanted social justice and equality.The second picture shows women who are holding another sign that represents the right for women to vote, just like men. Before 1920, when they made it legal for women to vote, activist

Their clothes became less restricted and flowy, giving them much more freedom to move and work. Where women were once expected to have long hair, short hair was now a sign of freedom. Make-up was popular, and more available. Sales boomed thanks to advertising. In the 1920s, women smoked in public and drove cars, which were not acceptable before the war. Women had more leisure time when labour-saving inventions like vacuum cleaners and washing machines decreased their housework. If they had a car, as many did, they were no longer so bound to the home. Overall, household and domestic consumer goods became more common, and these were targeted at

In the late eighteenth century hysteria was large in women that which may have made them been perceived a little different in society. In Nellie Bly’s excerpt she says “…. greatly dampened by the look of distress on the faces of my companions. Poor women they had no hopes of a speedy recovery.”(190) This saying says the women had no idea what they were getting into. The were nervous about going to this so called “mad house” and nervousness can lead to hysteria as it is said in Laura Briggs article. “As a description, “nervousness” did historic labor, and accounted for the most various disease of body and mind.” Even though most of the patients inside the asylum were

The doctor’s anecdote of his wife taking phosphates, tonics, journeys and air along with exercise was above reproach. If women had more of a voice, would approaches to treatment for mental illness have been more effective? Feeling powerless, the wife was relieved of her duties and cared for by her husband, the housekeeping was done by Jennie, her sister-in-law, and Mary cared for the baby.

The economy grew rapidly in the 1920s. The automobile had great impact. Through model changes and advertising, sales were stimulated. New consumer goods such as steel, gasoline, and road construction increased the growth of other businesses. Of all steel output in the 1920s, one seventh was used toward the manufacturing of automobiles. A nationwide search for oil deposits brought workers and money to the Southwest. A numbered highway system supported the rapid appearance of service stations, diners, and motels. As the economy grew, so did technology. The radio brought distant events into millions of homes. The washing machine, vacuum cleaners, and irons made household chores more efficient. With the growing economy, consumer credit allowed

For many centuries, women and men were not treated equally. After the Civil War, women had many essential successes that helped them earn respect. Throughout all of history women have not been seen as true equals to men. Women did not realize the extent of the matter at hand until after the Civil War.

In the 1920’s birth rates dramatically decreased as women were given access to birth control and were educated on health care, allowing women to make discussions about their own lives instead of relying on their husbands. The women’s reproduction movement, led by Margret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, changed society’s view of women’s sexuality, educated women on healthcare and made birth control options more prevalent in the United States, which empowered women to get an education, dive into the work field, and rely less on men. Women were suddenly encountered in the 1920’s by a new freedom to explore life the way a man did without the fear of children holding them back, as written by Mary E. Williams, an American author, and writer

Starkey's "hysterical bobbysoxers" diagnosis has entered the popular canon and school textbooks, while Hansen's verdict of "hysterical in the scientific sense of that term” has been accepted as true by the majority of scholars, Demos, McMillen, and even Karlsen, who treat the cause of affliction as settled and go on to other projects. While I see the cause as not settled, I will look instead at the way the same descriptions of affect have produced such mutually exclusive interpretations -- fraud and illness -- and suggest why fraud went entirely out of fashion, after being accepted for over a century, while hysteria came into fashion oddly, only Upham allows a mixture of fraud and illness. I will suggest that these shifts in interpretation are not founded on any new knowledge or new theories of psychology, but grow out of changes in cultural and ideological attitudes, especially toward women, and that they are made possible by the ambiguities of historical documents, by inadequate analyses of the explanations that were available in 1692, and occasionally by poor reasoning on the part of the historians.

Jane is a victim of a nervous disorder of the brain called hysteria. She is aware that she suffers from a series of mental and physical disturbances. She says that she has a " temporary nervous depression: -- a slight hysterical tendency- what is one to do?"(2).

In her book Women's Madness, Misogyny or Mental Illness, Ussher notes that in the Victorian era, hysteria was diagnosed primarily in strong, outspoken women: in other words: women who transgressed the ideal of true womanhood and thus challenged patriarchy. This is

Joan Busfield’s article also inspired this dissertation’s research concerning the gender anxiety of nineteenth-century mental illness. Busfield argued there was not a clear difference between women and men being admitted to the asylums based on ground of insanity. I found this interesting considering there was a social anxiety that women were committed