Prepared by: Journey McAndrews │ Fall 2012 │ Contact: (859) 619-0962

1. FIRELIGHT Marketing, Research, Media & Public Communication Consultant • Prepared by: Journey McAndrews│ Fall 2012 │ Contact: (859) 619-0962

2. Female Hysteria and the Rest “Cure”: The Truth Hidden Beneath Gilman’s Wall-paper WS 201 Journey McAndrews Bluegrass Community & Technical College Fall 2012

3. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935) "Here she comes, running out of prison and off the pedestal; chains off, crown off, halo off, just a live woman."

4. Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper is not only a premiere feminist manifesto, it is also one of the strongest polemics of its time against the biases the medical profession has against women and their “particular” diseases.

5. The Women Behind the Yellow Wall-paper Between 1700 and 1921, countless women across Europe and America underwent the torturous treatment for a “medical” condition known as hysteria.Hysteria became a “catchall” diagnosis for any ailment experienced by women. In reality, many of the symptoms were the result or real illnesses, including postpartum depression, epilepsy, allergies, ovarian cysts, migraines, heart disease, cancer, miscarriages, and even somatoforms that manifested as a result of living in domestic abuse situations.

6. Hysteria—A History For at least two-thousand years the “symptoms” of hysteria have been chronicled in “medical research—of which the “wandering womb” theory was a precursor to this “disease”. All early research was conducted by men, and even modern medicine relied on this antiquated and misogynistic “conclusions”. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1980’s that the term “hysteria” fell out of favor with medical professionals and was officially changed to conversion disorder by the American Psychological Association.

7. The Narrator vs. the Author In literature studies we are taught that we should never presume the literary work represents the author’s life or personal opinions.However, sometimes this is the case, at least it was with Charlotte Perkins Gilman. After the birth of her first and only child, she experienced postpartum depression and was treated by a noted physician of the time—Silas Weir Mitchell, who prescribed “the rest cure”.

8. The Yellow Wall-paper More than Gothic horror, more than a feminist protest against “treatments” for hysteria, The Yellow Wall-paper is a novella that chronicles one woman’s anguishing experience with postpartum depression. But beyond this, The Yellow Wall-paper gives a voice to all those women who married and became mothers despite knowing they were not suited to fulfills these roles and the “duties” that came with them.

9. The Yellow Wall-paper *The room as metaphor for the confinement of marriage *Jane as the “other woman” *Woman as child *She tears the paper at the end, like a bratty child *Women fit to have children, but not care for them *“the baby”—a nameless female child *ironic statements—“I am glad my case is not serious.”

10. Silas Weir Mitchell & the Rest Cure Silas Weir Mitchell (February 15, 1829 – January 4, 1914) was one of many male physicians who used unusual methods to treat his hysterical female patients. His main philosophy on “treatment” was to force his female patients into a lifelong avoidance of intellectual and creative activities. The irony is that Mitchell was also a writer who penned short stories for the Atlantic Monthly, among other notable magazines. Mitchell, an American physician, specialized in nerve maladies and he was best known now for pioneering “the rest cure”, which became a common treatment for hysteria and other afflictions of the “frail” female nervous system. He earned the nickname “Dr. Diet and Dr. Quiet” because he often subjected his patients to weird and strict diets and confinement to their beds. His work on hysteria also greatly influenced Sigmund Freud.

11. Mitchell Weir & the “Rest Cure” Weirinstructed Gilman to, “Live as domestic a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time... Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours’ intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live.” Gilman tried to follow her doctor’s advice, and she tried to follow society’s expectations for women, especially in the roles of wife and mother, but she slipped deeper into depression and almost experienced a full-psychotic breakdown. Gilman and her husband, Walter Stetson, mutually knew that they must divorce in order for her to recover and go on to live a productive life. The author left her husband in 1888 and began to improve almost immediately. In the beginning Gilman took her young daughter Katherine with her as she visited friends around the country.

12. George Cheyne & The English Malady George Cheyne (1671-1743) With the publication of GeorgeCheyne's The English Malady, a treatise on the “dis-eases” of the European upper-class, terms like spleen, melancholy, and hysteria—the catchall “medical” phrase for nearly all ailments experienced by the female body, enter what could be called early medical literature. These medical “conditions” become an area of interest and study in the medical profession, literature, and society of this era.It is important to note that Cheyne thought these “dis-eases” were a condition of only the upper class—educated, sophisticated, intelligent, because poor people were to commonplace to experience such complex emotional and mental issues.

13. George Cheyne & The English Malady One of Chenye’s famous male “melancholy” clients was the poet Alexander Pope, who suffered terrible bouts of depression.Pope’s most famous poem on hysteria and melancholy is The Rape of the Lock—a mock-heroic narrative poem, which was a form of poetry that had all of the tenents of an epic heroic poem like The Odyssey, but incorporated elements of parody. In the poem a young woman has a lock of her hair clipped, which was Pope’s way of mocking the standards of beauty at the time in which the poem was written. The poem also expresses the darker side of human emotions, in particular what could be called clinical depression or the lows that accompany bipolar disorder. Alexander Pope

14. Another Famous “Hysteric” Author While she may have wrote the first feminist polemic against the oppression of women with her now notorious A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly was a notable “hysteric” who, unlike Gilman, embraced this disease. Wollstonecraft’s love for Gilbert Imlay led to emotional and psychological turmoil, and she attempted suicide after Imlay abandoned her.In the book Her Own Woman: The Life of Mary Wollstonecraft, Diane Jacobs proclaims, “Mary was not mad . . . she was seriously depressed—inconsolable” (203) after Imlay left her. This “depression” as Jacobs describes it, is interpreted by G.J. Barker-Benfield in his article “Mary Wollstonecraft's Depression and Diagnosis:”, to be something more serious and more socially fashionable—the female malady known as hysteria.

15. Another Famous “Hysteric” Author Barker-Benfieldproclaims that Wollstonecraft suffered from classic symptoms of hysteria when she exhibited headaches, pain in her side, waning health, fatigue, “fits of trembling, a rising in the throat, nervous fever”, tremors, gaiety, and various other complaints; and yet, for all her symptoms, Wollstonecraft wondered if her hysteria was “all in [her] mind.” These revelations on Wollstonecraft’s personal life demonstrate that she, and women in general, were caught in a binary trap wherein no woman could fully espouse a complete feminist polemic because other factors—such as love, the need for survival (marriage being the most viable “job” for a woman) education issues, and child baring (Wollstonecraft had two children), hindered her ability to live autonomously from larger (male) society. WhileWollstonecraft may have triumphantly argued to “persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment . . . are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness”, she failed to convince herself of these very same feminist beliefs. Her hysterical love for Imlay seriously hindered her feministfreedom.

16. Other Notable Works by Gilman Herland—a utopian novel that centers on the lives of of a lost civilization populated by only women, that is, Until three men crash their plane into the hidden village that has ben inhabited for years by women. Women and Economics in this work the author explored the emerging social demand for equality in pay, but she also explored the role family, marriage, and children had on a woman’s life, in particular, the role these factors played in her earning a descent wage.

17. Forerunner for Gender Equality in Parenting Gilman was a forerunner of men’s parental rights as well. In fact, when she sent her young daughter back to live with her father and his new wife, she did so because she felt he had the right to be in his daughter’s life. She also felt his new wife was better suited to care for the child than she was. Gilman was against making a difference between the sexes, she wanted what most women have wanted from the onset of feminism—equality for human life.

18. The “father” of Psychoanalytic Misogyny “There is never any danger of corrupting an an inexperienced girl. For where there is no knowledge of sexual processes even in the unconscious, no hysterical symptom will arise; and where hysteria is found there can no longer be any question of ‘innocence of mind’.” Sigmund Freud

19. The Curious Case of “Dora” One of Freud’s most famous hysteria cases was “Dora”, a young woman who was sent to him for treatment by her father. Freud published her now infamous case-study, even though the young “hysteric” stopped treatment and challenged Freud’s methods. Freudwas incredibly apprehensive about presenting his findings on “Dora”—a pseudonym he gave her. The patient’s real name was Ida Bauer, a Jew who ended up in America to escape the Nazis.

20. Other “Treatments” for Hysteria Manual massage (in the 19th Century hysteria became a sexual disorder and women were sent to doctors for a “massage-cure” Cold water poured over the patient while she was bound Locked away in a prison, or asylum cell Exorcisms Starved Beaten Abandoned

21. Other “Treatments” for Hysteria

22. Hysteria and the DSM Current psychiatric terminology distinguishes two types of disorder that were previously labeled 'hysteria': somatoformand dissociative. The dissociative disorders in DSM-IV-TR include dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, dissociative identity disorder, depersonalization disorder, and dissociative disorder not otherwise specified. Somatoform disorders include conversion disorder, somatization disorder, pain disorder, hypochondriasis (which was once linked to melancholy in male patients) and body dysmorphic disorder. In somatoform disorders, the patient exhibits physical symptoms such as low back pain or limb paralysis, without apparent physical cause. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

23. Postmodern Feminists & Hysteria In Empire of the Senseless, Kathy Acker writes, “Literature is that which denounces and slashes apart the repressing machine at the level of the signified.”Essentially, postmodern feminist authors, both male and female, seek to deconstruct meaning, especially meaning that is culturally attached to Meta Narratives—such as “the man is the head of the household”, “Christ is the Son of God”, America is the land of the free”, and so on. Meta Narratives are big overarching themes, master ideas, or ideologies that most people accept to be true.

24. Kathy Acker’s Rejection of Freud’s Hysterical “Madwomen” Some facts about Kathy Acker Acker wrote transgressive literature—i.e. literature that transgresses against social norms, customs, and beliefs Acker often wrote pseudo-feminist texts—it was sometimes hard to tell if she was a feminist or writing in a theory and philosophy of her own Acker was charged with obscenity in several countries and her work has been banned since the 1970’s until now Acker created female characters and personas that embodied an hysterical discourse within their voices—she did this to rally against patriarchal oppression and the sexual abuse of women and female children. Acker grew up as a wealthy Jew living in New York. Her father sexually abused her from early childhood until she ran away from home as a youth.

25. Kathy Acker’sRejection of Freud’s Hysterical “Madwomen” Acker has a reoccurring child character in many of her works—”Janey” as she is sometimes called, is a ten-year-old incest casualty who often speaks like a woman and has promiscuous sex with people along with a sexual relationship with her father. Little “Janey” is Acker’s postmodern rendition of the “hysterical” female, only now the stock character is given a larger socio-political purpose—she speaks the language of abuse without hesitation—In the novel Blood and Guts in High School, Janey refers to her father as, “Boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father.”

26. Kathy Acker’s Rejection of Freud’s Hysterical “Madwomen” By its very nature postmodern transgressive literature seeks to deconstruct metanarratives that any given society (or societies) embrace, especially those so culturally entrenched that references to them have become fused within everyday language. This entrenchment is no more apparent than with how Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic jargon has become part of everyday language not only in American culture, but in many other parts of the world. Therefore, it is unsurprising that Acker’s work seeks to deconstruct Freud’s model of the hysterical woman; and in doing so, Acker rejects Freud’s beliefs about how hysterical symptoms are linked to female sexuality—or rather, maladies associated with female sexuality.

27. Gilman & Acker Reject Modern Medicine Kathy Acker died of breast cancer at age 50. When she was diagnosed she rejected modern medical treatments and instead opted to spend the rest of her days in an alternative treatment center in Mexico. Being a life-long artist, one that, because of the controversial nature of her work did not enjoy commercial or academic success, died penniless and her friends helped pay off her medical debts. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1932. She battled the disease for more than three years before committing suicide in 1935. In her suicide note she wrote: “When all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.”

28. Medical Sexism Goes Both Ways Not only did Victorian era Europe create outlandish rules for women when it came to the birth and care of children, men were usually discouraged from being near their wives during the birthing process.Female anatomy, biological, and emotionality have always been cloaked in mystery, taboo, and fear. And yet, the female body has always been on display, poked, explored, and violated. Moreover, the male body has always enjoyed a status that was above medical and social scrutiny, but this has led to men being Ignored in the medical profession because they are believed to be stronger, more stoic, less emotional. This is especially true in the mental health profession—men have been larger ignored or “treated” differently than women when it came to the kind of mental health diagnosis and treatments they received.

29. Medical Sexism Goes Both Ways Women are more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness than men. This fact is alarming because it indicates sexism in both directions. Men are less likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness because (1) there is a social stigma attached to the “mentally weak” male, (2) men hide their mental illnesses more readily by allocating excessive time to work, abusing alcohol, drugs, or becoming obsessed with hobbies. Likewise, men are more likely to suffer in silence for years as mental illness and emotional issues go unresolved and ignored because they are too embarrassed or ashamed to seek help for their conditions.

30. Medical Sexism Goes Both Ways Mental illness in men has been called “a silent crisis, a sleeper issue that has crept into the minds of millions.” Many times, male mental illness is a cause for domestic violence and abuse. Men either don’t know they are ill, or refuse to get treatment, thus they take their frustrations and symptoms out on their family members.

31. Boys DO Cry Cultural beliefsoutside the medical field also influence the medical climate. Indeed, individual families who call their male children sissies when they get hurt and cry, are, in fact, creating an emotional break in these children that lingers long into adulthood. Boys do cry just as well as girls. Emotions are part of being human. Males and females are equally prone to mental illness and deserve equal and fair treatments for their ailments.

32. Hysteria is Still with Us In films and books and popular references—the image of the “mad” hysterical woman is all around. A Dangerous Method (2011 film) deals with Jung and Freud’s “treatments” for hysteria.

33. Books on Hysteria Hysteria Beyond Freud by Sandra L. Gilman et al The Female Malady by Elaine Showalter The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert & Susan Gubar The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel P. Maines The English Malady: Enabling and Disabling Fictions edited by Glen Colburn