IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v26y1988i12p1199-1208.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

'Prisoners of their own feebleness': Women, nerves and western medicine--A historical overview

Author

Listed:
  • Cayleff, Susan E.

Abstract

The medical conceptualization, diagnosis and treatment of nervous disorders has been greatly affected by gender ideologies. A survey of recent scholarship reveals that gender ideologies still largely inform the illness-labeling, medical diagnosis and management of woman's physiology and, in particular, her nerves. Historically the names of the specific 'diseases' have evolved from demonic possession, tarantism, hysteralgia, hystero-epilepsy, neurasthenia, hypochondriasis and nervousness to neurosis, but several key features remain static. The overriding common features of these ailments are the gender of their sufferers and the behavioral symptoms they exhibit. The etiologies first emphasized uterine causation then gradually shifted emphasis to focus on psychological factors. Both of these etiological explanations contributed to perceptions of women as more physiologically and emotionally vulnerable and unpredictable and justified advocating a gender-specific course of medical management and social sphere of influence. Historically and contemporarily, medical illness-labeling and therapeutics pertaining to women's nerves reflect the interplay between changing scientific information and culturally constructed gender relations. Claims and 'proofs' of women's predisposed susceptibility to nervous debility transcended medical and scientific knowledge to include assertions that reflected and perpetuated deeply-held beliefs about female and male physiology, their consequent natures, and the acceptable parameters of women's behavior and influence. Thus the metaphor of the prison can be employed to describe not only the debility produced among women from psycho-organic malaise, but also the limitations placed on women's life choices and acceptable modes of expression.

Suggested Citation

  • Cayleff, Susan E., 1988. "'Prisoners of their own feebleness': Women, nerves and western medicine--A historical overview," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 26(12), pages 1199-1208, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:26:y:1988:i:12:p:1199-1208
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(88)90152-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:26:y:1988:i:12:p:1199-1208. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.