Misogyny Induced Madness

​© 2023 Niki Christine. All Rights Reserved.

Women are continuously subjected to an array of accusations, definitions, dismissals, and discriminations regarding their mental and physical capacities, both inherently and in comparison to men. Moreover, women face a consistent association with mental illness to an egregious degree. The oppression and discrimination within misogynistic cultures throughout history have consequently caused women to experience an erosion of mental wellness, thus leading to the propagation of intergenerational mental ailments. As a result, the historically consistent misogynistic narrative that madness directly correlates with womanhood has, despite medical and social advancements, resulted in generational mental illness among women, alongside an internalized notion of inevitable insanity.

Women have long been linked to the development of various mental disorders and illnesses. Hysteria, in particular, was the first mental illness attributable to women and traces back to the second millennium BC (Tasca, Cecilia, et al). Showing up in ancient Egypt, traditional symptoms of this disorder were described “as tonic-clonic seizures and the sense of suffocation and imminent death” (Tasca, Cecilia, et al). These symptoms portray a heightened sense of emotions such as panic and anxiety, in addition to the physical manifestation of seizures. The highly emotional episodes came to be called hysteria and were believed to be caused by a wandering uterus. This refers to the idea that “spontaneous uterus movement within the female body,” resulted in hysterical episodes. By presenting hysteria as a side-effect of having this female organ, the disorder becomes inseparable from women. Women and madness, another term for hysteria, were so deeply connected that “women were often not described as "patients" to be cured but rather as the "cause" (Tasca, Cecilia, et al). Therefore, Hysteria was inherently a woman's disease, as it could only exist if there was a woman's body to give it home.

As seen above, hysteria was affecting women’s mental wellness as a result of their natural anatomy. Due to this, there were multiple healing measures taken to try and rebalance the uterus’ placement. Different scents were commonly used in attempts to achieve this (Tasca, Cecilia, et al). This was done by placing perfumed or acrid-smelling substances near the woman’s mouth, or private regions, with the belief that this would coerce the uterus back into place (Tasca, Cecilia, et al). The arguably most common cure, however, was sexual activity. This cure maintained that the uterus “is sad and unfortunate when it does not join with the male and does not give rise to a new birth” (Tasca, Cecilia, et al). As a result of this logic, women were encouraged to, and most likely forced, to participate in sexual relations with men. Additionally, this logic was perpetuated by multiple, influential figures in history. Philosophers such as Plato, Hippocrates, Galen, and Aristotle were all of the same opinion, which argued that the woman’s uterus was the harbinger of this brain disorder (Tasca, Cecilia, et al). The co-signing of these theories by highly regarded individuals such as these serves to highlight how deeply embedded into society this reasoning and its abusive cures were- and though the lesser violating of these cures, scents, would fade out over time, sexual assault would sustain. This direct correlation between the female anatomy and mental illness naturally assumes that women were victims to their bodies and essentially helpless against the development of a debilitating mental state.

Moreover, these beliefs associated women with a life ruled by determinism. Essentially, determinism claims that the world and our experience in it “is fixed as a matter of natural law” (Hoefer, Carl). If the innate female anatomy is to blame for causing insanity, then women are reduced to a fated life of hysteria and mental illness. As the human body will naturally change and evolve, including the functioning of the uterus, it is unlikely that a woman will circumvent the development of hysteria. Pregnancy and birth cause movement of the uterus, and as procreation was argued to be a cure due to the logic that the uterus was sad, women were encouraged to use an antidote that would definitionally induce madness. Further, this reasoning trains women to be aware of a ticking time bomb of mental illness within their bodies. Raised in a misogynistic culture such as this, it is unlikely women thought very differently regarding their bodies and mind. Unless a member of the upper class, women were generally uneducated and closed off from any sense of edification. (Lambert, Tim). Without access to education, the development of rationality, critical thinking skills, social- and physical- awareness is stunted. As a result, it is unlikely women would have had the intellectual ability to reason outside of the claims and narratives deeply rooted within their culture. As a further consequence, they were likely unaware that this treatment was abusive and thus had negative impacts on their psyche and mental well-being.

Though philosophy and science developed, the pairing of women and mental illness continued to prevail. The narrative that women were innately sick- both mentally and physically, dominated the blossoming field of psychiatry and medicine. The notion that women were inherently sick is highlighted in the words of “eminent surgeon, Silas Weir Mitchell,” who claimed that “the man that does not know sick women, does not know women (Ehrenreich and English, 1978:129)” (Usher, 90). Quoted in the late 1900s, it is clear that although medicine and science had grown by leaps, women were still bound by the belief that their life was fated to madness. However, the narrative that sexual activity could help cure women had done a 180, and participation in sexual activity- outside of marriage, was now seen as a symptom of mental illness (Usher, page 72). However, this did not prevent sexually abusive cures from occurring, instead switched to things such as clitorectomy to stop women from indulging in sexual activities. Additionally, women were subjected to something known as the rest cure, which operated under the belief that limiting a woman’s stimulation to as little as possible would help heal her thus leading to extensive isolation and loneliness. Due to the traumatic nature of these cures, women who were mentally well before the experience most likely left with significant emotional, and physical scarring. In response to intensely abusive situations, it is probable that coping mechanisms such as dissociation, melancholy, and hysteria (uncontrolled, magnified expressions of emotion) increased. These cures were arguably stimulants for madness. Not only were women socialized to believe their bodies held the cause of insanity, but that traumatic abuse would heal them.

​Women affected by these misogynistic practices that go on to have children may unknowingly pass down the emotional impacts. As women were forced to cope with the effects of abuse, coupled with the narrative that this same abuse should have healed them, it is unlikely that their behavior did not reflect this. Whether it be severe bouts of depression or debilitating hysteria, the emotional state of these women must have suffered. Furthermore, there is research suggesting that being raised by a traumatized parent can have significant environmental, and potentially genetic, impacts. Though the studies surrounding the notion that trauma can be genetic are still developing, there is evidence that children raised by heavily traumatized parents can grow up to portray similar emotional symptoms (Rachel and Lehrner). This means that daughters, as they are raised, can potentially inherit deeply internalized trauma from affected mothers. Examples of this intergenerational trauma manifest through behavior such as a tendency towards catastrophizing, dysphoria, hypervigilance, anxiety, nightmares, guilt, and more- emotions which were also attributed to women with hysteria, as well as being normal trauma responses (Rachel and Lehrner). Additionally, these children display behavior signifying an over-identification with their parents, impaired self-esteem, and worry that parental trauma could be repeated (Rachel and Lehrner). This highlights that children may pick up on, either through direct knowledge or intuition, their parents' traumatized past. Therefore, even if trauma is not genetically passed, being raised by a traumatized parent can affect a child's mental wellness and behavior in a way that appears similar to the parents themselves.

In addition to potentially passing down the emotional states that trauma can induce, the belief that female anatomy is to blame for their mental ailments- rather than abusive circumstances, may also persevere. Mothers are just “as indoctrinated by patriarchal ideology as their daughters will come to be” (Usher, page 39) and as a result, may raise their children in a manner that upholds the misogynistic beliefs that have, and continue to, oppress them. However, mothers are not solely to blame, if to blame, at all, for this perpetuation. As they are victims and therefore the effects will, by default, color aspects of their behavior and beliefs. This may unknowingly contribute to reproducing and advancing misogynistic narratives within their household. As a result, their daughters may inherit the impending sense of doom due to their body’s vulnerabilities to hysteria, alongside the emotional symptoms discussed above. As women generationally pass down these misogynistic narratives and trauma, it is unsurprising they make up the largest population of psychiatric patients (CDC and Prevention). Furthermore, while seeking help may be due to actual mental illness, it could also be a result of the internalized idea that women are born with the ingredients for insanity. Subconsciously or not, women affected by this thought could seek psychiatric help as a way to justify these feelings or to confirm that there is something wrong with them- as they have been told.

Misogyny creates abusive and violent societies for women and reinforces the harmful inferiority and notions of hysteria when women display common symptoms of reactive abuse and trauma. It is only natural for women to feel an internal sense of insanity as they are constantly shut down, violated, and given narratives claiming they are mentally unwell. As a result, madness induced by misogyny is an instinctive and human response that continues to generationally pass down and affect the mental well-being of women.


​
Works Cited

Hoefer, Carl. “Causal Determinism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 21 Jan. 2016.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/#Int

Lambert, Tim. “A History of Women’s Education.” Local Histories, 24 Mar. 2023.
https://localhistories.org/a-history-of-womens-education/

“Products - Data Briefs - Number 380 - September 2020.” Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, 23 Sept. 2020.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db380.htm

Tasca, Cecilia, et al. “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health.” Clinical Practice
& Epidemiology in Mental Health, vol. 8, no. 1, 2012, pp. 110–119.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480686/

Traniello , Vanessa. Hysteria and the Wandering Womb.
https://academic.mu.edu/meissnerd/hysteria.html

Ussher, Jane M. Women’s Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness? University of Massachusetts
Press, 1992.

“Products - Data Briefs - Number 380 - September 2020.” Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, 23 Sept. 2020.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db380.htm

Yehuda, Rachel, and Amy Lehrner. “Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma Effects: Putative
Role of Epigenetic Mechanisms.” World Psychiatry, vol. 17, no. 3, 2018, pp. 243–257,
https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20568