The Madness of Women: Myth and Experience

Abstract

Women are more likely than men to be diagnosed as “mad,” from eighteenth and nineteenth century diagnoses of “hysteria,” to twentieth and twenty-first diagnoses of “neurotic” and mood disorders. Women are also more likely to receive psychiatric “treatment,” including nineteenth and twentieth century psychiatric hospitalization, accompanied by restraint, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) or psycho-surgery, as well as psychological therapy or psychotropic medication today. This chapter will expose the myths of women’s madness, by exploring the genealogy of current psychiatric discourse as it applies to women, revealing the flaws and misogyny inherent within the “regimes of truth” promulgated by psy-professionals – the regulation of women deemed deviant or dysfunctional. This is not to deny the materiality of the prolonged misery or distress reported by many women. Acknowledging the origins of this distress in the context of women’s lives means it can be conceptualized as a reasonable response, rather than a reflection of internal pathology. Some women are more at risk of distress and pathologization than others, including women of color, poor women, lesbian, bisexual, queer, and transgender women, and those who have experienced trauma and abuse. A feminist intersectional analysis, that acknowledges the intersection of identities, and the material, discursive, and intrapsychic aspects of women’s distress, allows us to address women’s concerns and challenge their diagnosis as mad.