Hysterical or Wicked? Either Way, Women Won't Win.

I’ve recently taken up a particular interest in hysteria and women’s “madness,” an idea which we can certainly say influenced the typical image of the female witch. It’s interesting to me that definitions of hysteria both led to and brought the end of the persecution of women “witches,” and no matter where you look, women are framed in a negative light. 

The notion of hysteria (literally translated from the Greek word hystera meaning uterus) as the mental illness of women existed from at least 1900 BC. In early understandings of medicine and the body, physicians and philosophers alike attributed various mental as well as physical symptoms to a wandering womb. For centuries, things like seizures, feelings of suffocation, anxiety attacks, and various other illnesses (sometimes perceived) in women were said to be caused by the uterus’ sudden movement. Cures for such ailments often included placing scented items, one repugnant and one pleasant, at the woman’s genitals and head so as to attract or repel the displaced uterus back to its proper position. Otherwise, a woman might be prescribed sexual activity, as a lack of “normal” sexual activity was often found to be the root of the issue. Gross– I know.  

Despite the popularity of this interpretation of madness in women (even the greats we know of today, such as Plato, Aristotle, and Maimonides, professed these beliefs), focus turned away from physical/mental illness with the heightened power of the Christian Church, especially as they aimed to maintain that power. Very quickly, mad women became not ill sufferers (though let’s not pretend this is much of a compliment), but perpetrators of evil. In the Middle Ages, we see the concept of the “defective creature,” the Malleus Maleficarum, and early witch hunts. At this time, “hysterical” women were either “cured” with exorcisms, or they were killed as witches. 

As our last reading discussed, witch trials began to lose steam as people questioned the validity of methods used to gain confessions and the reality of magic. Instead of believing that the accused (or proclaimed) witches had any supernatural powers, people began to say that they were simply delusional or mentally unstable (pg 176) or senile, jealous, or suffering from melancholy (pg 184). 

I’m sure these were meant to be more positive or sympathetic outlooks on women (I mean at least we weren’t being killed, right?), but I can’t help but see this as yet another way for a patriarchal society to claim that women are somehow inferior. And, the implications of this continue today. Still, hysteria is a term generally reserved for women, and we are still discredited when we raise our voices or become upset. Moreover, the term is readily applied to women trying to break down barriers. Feminists are hysterical; Hillary Clinton is hysterical; so many women who aim to do the traditionally unacceptable are hysterical. And, like the uterus was to blame then, hormones are often to blame now. It all sounds too familiar. 

Finally, because this post focuses on madness, I leave you with some slightly relevant Taylor Swift lyrics: And there's nothin' like a mad woman / What a shame she went mad / No one likes a mad woman / You made her like that (mad woman, Swift).