Women’s Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness? Women’s Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness by Jane M. Ussher was the book I chose to study. The book was published in 1991 by Harvester Wheatsheaf. I chose Women’s Madness because I feel that women’s mental health is overlooked and mistreated. Ussher does a great job of acknowledging men’s madness, but also researching how a woman's health is affected by living in a misogynistic world. As the title suggests, the book is about finding the common cause of women’s mental health issues, and whether their issues are truly a problem of self or if they are caused by deep rooted misogyny. Women’s Madness starts off with an insight into Ussher’s childhood. She tells a story about how her mother had gone …show more content…
She went on to study psychology and treated both men and women, which gives her the validity to write this book. In Women’s Madness, Ussher brings up points from many other researchers and past/present cultural norms that prove women’s madness doesn’t stem from mental illness but instead stems from misogyny. Jane M. Ussher talks about the sociological concepts of gender and culture. She analyzes how much the differences in gender and how hatred and misogyny can affect one group (women). She also examines many different examples of norms in society that belittle women in distinct cultures. Both concepts go hand in hand throughout the book as misogyny plays a critical role in the influence of both. The concept of misogyny is important to Ussher’s discussion of gender. It is mentioned early on that women are seen as the “Other” and men are the “One”. This sets a huge divide between the two genders and is part of the reason as to why women are mad. The author goes into the detail of how misogynistic sexual assault and rape is and how it shouldn’t be misconstrued as men not being able to hold back their desire, but that it is a powerful
The short stories, “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” by Fritz Lieber, “Bits and Pieces,” by Lisa Tuttle, “While She Was Out” by Edward Bryant, “Cold Turkey” by Carole Nelson Douglas, and “Lightning Rod” by Melanie Tem Historically, in literature, women are stereotypically placed in one of two roles, the doting wife and beloved mother, or the more outwardly psychotic, witch-like, temptress. As the feminist approach to the criticism of literature has blossomed over time, the need for empowered female characters has surfaced. To rectify the absence of this character, “wild women literature” has made many advances in the defiance of gender role stereotypes and gender norms. The women in the collection of wild women short stories are difficult to define because of society’s pre-conceived notions of how women should and do behave. The term “wild women” conveys a slightly negative and sometimes misinterpreted connotation of a woman’s behavior; however, in this collection of stories, the female characters are generally vindicated because of the motivation behind their actions. The motivation can be linked to the popular cultural phenomenon of women taking charge of their lives, making decisions for themselves, being independent, rising above their oppressors (most commonly the close men in their lives), and becoming empowered. Vigilante actions by the wild women in these stories are not entirely representative of madness, but also re...
It is unhealthy for any human being to have a restraint on their mind or life. Naturally, a person will become unstable living under such circumstances. People need to express their imagination and live freely in order to remain mentally stable. There are ways to restrain people who need help without controlling and taking away every aspect of their life. Where the female “madness” starts is different with every woman, but there is no doubt that there are certain factors and conditions that develop and escalate the insanity. Jane and Emily in the short stories, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, both prove to be victims of abuse from the male authority
In society, women have been associated with being the cooks, maids and concubines for years. This misogynistic viewpoint has been shown in various forms of media, and societal stereotypes. However, these stereotypes of women are thoroughly shown through literature like “Tits Up in a Ditch” by Annie Proulx, which questions and challenges the role of women in society. In “Tits Up in a Ditch”, the protagonist is forced to remain in a housewife’s place after trying to escape the gender norm and be in the military. Likewise, the stereotypical role of women becomes probed in an academic setting such as the scholarly article, “Women Know Your Limits: Cultural Sexism in Academia.” Like “Tits Up in a Ditch,” cultural sexism is defined through the stereotypes
Both the narrator and Mrs. Marroner are searching for peace in her male conquered world. The narrator of the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, is symbolic for all women in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, a prisoner of a confining society. Just like society, her husband, John, controls and determines much of what his wife should or should not do, leaving her incapable of making her own decisions. Because he is a man and a physician of high standing, she accepts his orders. When reflecting on men’s behavior, Hausman said, “Gilman tried to prove that what the men think is a biologically ordained pattern of behavior was, in fact, a convention specifically related to their society and the biohistorical organization of human culture” (Hausman). Men treated their wives poorly because that is what they experienced in previous generations. Repression of women’s rights in society stereotype that women are fragile. Men believed they should not work and be discouraged from intell...
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," Gilman makes adamant statements about feminism and the oppression of women during the 19th century. This story allows the reader to see into the mind of a woman who is slowly going insane and suffering from postpartum depression. During the 19th century, women were forced into a certain stereotype, that of wife and mother. Women were not allowed to express and challenge themselves the way men were. Just as the narrator of the story is trapped in her room, women are trapped in pretentious acts that do not allow them to explore their creativity and intelligence. Gilman displays how easily one can go insane when they are suppressed by a patriarchal society. Gilman’s illustration of a subordinate wife, fully dominated by her husband, proposes a sense of gender stereotypes, as well as the treatments prescribed for the mentally ill; as the narrator is forced to become unproductive, John continues to act superior to his wife and treat her like a prisoner and child.
Societal control of the accepted terms by which a woman can operate and live in lends itself to the ultimate subjugation of women, especially in regards to her self-expression and dissent. Gilman does an extraordinary job of effectively communicating and transforming this apparent truth into an eerie tale of one woman’s gradual spiral towards the depths of madness. This descent, however, is marked with the undertones of opportunity. On one hand, the narrator has lost all hope. On the other, she has found freedom in losing all hope. This subversion of the patriarchal paradigm is tactfully juxtaposed against a backdrop of the trappings of insanity.
In the book, Between the World and Me (111-152), Ta-Nehisi Coates suggests that Black people have been dehumanized for so long because White people have had power over them since the beginning of slavery. Black people have always been at a disadvantage when it comes to the safety and protection of their bodies and there was never anything they could do to prevent such destruction from happening. Coates writes: “Disembodiment is a kind of terrorism, and the threat of it alters the orbit of all our lives and, like terrorism, this distortion is intentional”(114). In this case, the terrorists are White people. White people have taken the Black body and made it into something so frightening to other Americans that, as a result, we now experience
Knight, Denise D. "'I am getting angry enough to do something desperate': The Question of Female 'Madness.'." "The Yellow Wall-Paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Dual-Text Critical Edition. Ed. Shawn St. Jean. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2006. 73-87. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 201. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 10 Feb. 2012.
explores not only the way in which patriarchal society, through its concepts of gender , its objectification of women in gender roles, and its institutionalization of marriage, constrains and oppresses women, but also the way in which it, ultimately, erases women and feminine desires. Because women are only secondary and other, they become the invisible counterparts to their husbands, with no desires, no voice, no identity. (Wohlpart 3).
As the realization of women as an exploited group increases, the similarity of their position to that of racial and ethnic groups becomes more apparent. Women are born into their sexual identity and are easily distinguished by physical and cultural characteristics. In addition, women now identify that they are all sufferers of an ideology (sexism) that tries to justify their inferior treatment.
Early nineteenth century hysteria in women was extremely common. It was the first mental disorders attributed only to women. However, there was a grave misconception; the symptoms of hysteria at the time were seen as nervousness, hallucinations, emotional outbursts, various urges of sexual variety, sexual thoughts, fainting, sexual desire or frustration and irritability (Pearson). Although there were many symptoms they were not limited to this list. Many of these symptoms were just signs of expression that women had; however, society immediately decided that these women had hysteria with no real proof. These women then had a label, holding them back from their normal everyday lives that they were unable to fix because they were not allowed to. Because most doctors were men, they relayed the cure to these symptoms with sexual acts which were masked by portraying them as a cure such as “hysterical paroxysm” (Pearson). These so called “treatments” carried on for centuries after but are no longer used as a cure to hysteria. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of The Yellow Wallpaper was a feminist who at one point in her life was said to be labeled as hysteric. She then began expressing these feelings that she had through her writings. Most of these writings were based on her personal experiences with the disease. She believed that if she wrote about her situations and how she was able to push away from society to better herself that it could help other women with hysteria or the symptoms of it. Her representation of hysteria in The Yellow Wallpaper does not really differ from what women at the time expressed about themselves. Gilman’s representation and first hand experiences wit...
...ver been written to show why so many woman go crazy, especially farmers' wives, who live lonely, monotonous lives. A husband of the kind described that he could not account for his wife's having gone insane – 'for,' said he, "to my certain knowledge she has hardly left her kitchen and bedroom in 30 years" (60). Critic Sharon Felton says, "Even if we should remove every legal and political discrimination against women; even if we should accept their true dignity and power as a sex; so long as their universal business is private housework they remain, industrially, at the level of private domestic land labor and economically a non productive, dependent class . The wonder is not that so many women break down, but so few" (273). Critic Sharon Felton "Even if we should remove every legal and political discrimination against women; even if we should accept their true dignity and power as a sex; so long as their universal business is private housework they remain, industrially, at the level of private domestic hand labor and economically a non productive, dependent class ….The wonder is not that so many women break down, but so few."(273)
Historically, theories about human nature and personality development did not reflect women’s visions, needs and opinions (Wellesley Centers for Women, 2011: Westkott 1989). However, Karen Horney, a psychoanalyst in the first half of the twentieth century began to question the concept of human nature being only associated with man and not woman (Eckardt, 2005). Through this questioning, Horney began to reinterpret Freud’s psychoanalytic theory on feminine psychology development, accumulating in fourteen papers written between 1922 and 1937 on feminine psychology (Smith, 2007). Published posthumously as Feminine Psychology (1967) these papers had a significant impact on feminist theory and have been cited as the ‘political and theoretical origins’
Throughout history, sexism and gender roles in society has been a greatly debated topic. The Women’s Rights Movements, N.O.M.A.S. (The National Organization of Men Against Sexism), M.A.S.E.S. (Movement Against Sexual Exploitation and Sexism), and many other movements and groups have all worked against the appointment of gender roles and sexist beliefs. Many authors choose to make a controversial topic a central theme in their work of literature, and the theme of gender roles is no exception. “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou, “Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich, and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman all address the gender roles that have been placed by society.
“John laughs at me, of course”, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charoleette Perkin Gilman, allows the reader to have a insight on the terrors a young women faces by her controlling husband, which eventually leads her to insanity. When analyzing gender differences between men and women in the short story The Yellow Wallpaper it became apparent that men have a higher authority over women. Charlotte Perkin Gilman depicts a short story about a young lady that encounters a serve depression that worsens after receiving unusual treatment from her husband John. Using the feminist theory, the reader can analyze how The Yellow Wallpaper embodies the struggles faced by women in the 1800’s and current time, also, relating on the authors own experience living in a society dominated by men.