party soft

9/25/2012

Here’s a quick history lesson. The word Hysterical comes from the Greek Hysterikos, which literally means “of the womb.” Plato and his contemporaries actually believed that when the uterus remained empty for too long, it would start wandering angrily through the body and smack into women’s brains, making them act irrational — or as Golub would say, “shrill and angry.” Hysteria was a catch-all medical diagnosis used until the late nineteenth century as a way to discredit and isolate women who tended to show strong emotions or “cause trouble,” and the “treatment” of these women is a black mark on the history of the entire psychological profession. Doctors would “manually stimulate” (read: sexually assault) women’s genitals to tame their wild uteruses, and if that didn’t work, women would be institutionalized. Of course, this horrifying practice was still a massive improvement to the lively stake-burning that was used to cure the fictional disorder during the Inquisition.

My response to the Washington Times blogger who called Sandra Fluke and Elizabeth warren “shrill, angry, and hysterical” (via stfusexists)

institutionalization was not the only option. surgical options were also extremely popular for those who could afford them, even into the 20th century: hysterectomies, clitoridectomies, and oophorectomies were all performed on hysterical or otherwise “dysfunctional” women. often these procedures were done at the behest of fathers or husbands, but the practice became so normalized that some women actually requested the procedures themselves. women would go through multiple surgeries, removing one organ and then the next, when obviously just fiddling around with their reproductive systems did not make them more agreeable.

(via cheatthis)