Photo by SHVETS production
Jo Ellen Capps-Layne’s Laughter at Dawn is a book about a woman overcoming mental illness and finding a happy ending after a terrible struggle. For millennia, mental illness and perceptions of it have been used against the betterment of women. One such prong was the claims of hysteria, an enduring falsehood that should be corrected.
Untangling the Claims of Hysteria
The psychological illness of “hysteria” has long been debunked as nothing more than misogynistic drivel. Yet, its influence and hold on contemporary society persists.
If we are to move on from such an outdated view of women, there must first be understanding.
The Origins of an Enduring Falsehood
As a pathology, hysteria was purported to have stemmed from something innate within a woman. The symptoms that hysteria manifested were said to be tied solely to the fact and being of a woman.
Thus, it is no surprise that hysteria came from unfounded assumptions of the woman’s body. This was the “wandering womb” theory, which stated that the uterus was, in a way, a separate entity from the woman herself. Dissatisfied with its position within the woman’s body, the uterus would move around, looking for a niche that would satisfy it but, at the same time, would cause a range of physical and emotional symptoms that only women could suffer from.
This idea that there was another semi-entity within a woman’s body contributed to the notion that women were inherently unstable and prone to emotional excess. As time passed, the theory of a literal wandering womb would go away, but the idea that women were inherently unstable and emotionally excessive would persist due to longstanding ideas about women and their capacity for autonomy.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio
The Persistent Deceptions of Hysteria
One of the most enduring falsehoods of hysteria is its association with femininity. While there is no scientific basis to these claims, the idea that women are irrational and emotionally unstable is still seen as the norm in vast swathes of the world. This assumption has been used to justify discrimination, limit opportunities, and silence women’s voices since all of recorded history. It is the man who is rational and the woman who is not.
Another falsehood founded on the concept of hysteria is the idea that emotional distress is inherently pathological and indicative of an imbalance in the mind. While it is true that there are some emotional experiences tied to underlying mental health conditions, the tendency to pathologize normal human emotions, particularly in women, is demonstrably false.
The Lasting Legacy of Hysteria
The damning consequences of hysteria lie in its legacy of misdiagnosis and mistreatment. For far too long, women who were labeled hysterical were often subjected to harmful and ineffective treatments, ranging from rest cures and hydrotherapy to hysterectomies and clitoridectomies. These treatments were inhumane and horrific, serving not only to harm the people it was intended to provide relief for but also to provide outlets for misogynists to act as they please under the guise of pathology and medicine. Much of the suffering caused by the idea of hysteria was exacerbated by actual misogynists being given control over women’s lives.
While these treatments were often based on flawed assumptions about the nature of hysteria and the female body, it is clear that a significant foundation of the procedures was founded on extremely misogynistic ideas of the world.
Thus, hysteria serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of medical interventions based on incomplete or biased information.
Moreover, the dismissal of women’s lived experiences as merely results of an innate “hysterical” character has had a lasting impact on the way women’s health is perceived and treated.
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Women’s pain, both physical and emotional, is often dismissed or minimized, leading to delays in diagnosis and treatment. In worst cases, death is possible and could have been easily avoided had the doctor been willing to look beyond their preconceived biases.
This tendency to disregard women’s experiences is rooted in the historical legacy of hysteria, which has taught us to view women’s emotions with suspicion and to dismiss their concerns as irrational or exaggerated. This led to untold amounts of unnecessary suffering throughout time and across the world.
The story of hysteria is a complex and multifaceted one, marked by both scientific curiosity and societal bias. While the term has been largely abandoned in modern medicine, its legacy continues to shape our understanding of mental health and the experiences of women.
Laughter at Dawn is available for purchase through this link.
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