Hysteria Was a Punitive Diagnosis

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Hysteria reduced women to a gendered assumption that whenever they're unwell, it's purely because of the nature of being female. It remained in no use as a diagnostic category, at least until the fifties. And up until about the 19 eighties, in some contexts were say it hovered around. Hysteria is the category applied to women, you know, si, it's discriminatry knowledge imposed upon them.

A deeply embedded idea in our culture is the sexist notion that men are the “default” human, and women the unknowable “other". Nowhere is this more visible than in the history of medicine, with disastrous consequences for women’s’ health. On the show this week to discuss her new book is Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World. You can check out her book at factuallypod.com/books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.