Women Are NOT Hysterical

Photo by Vera Arsic: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-and-woman-in-brown-leather-coat-standing-on-brown-soil-984946/

First, let’s clarify something important: hysteria is not actually a disease. Although it was treated as one for centuries, the American Psychiatric Association removed it as a valid diagnosis in 1952.

Historically, women labeled as “hysterical” were said to suffer from symptoms such as fatigue, irritability, nervousness, insomnia, heaviness in the abdomen, shortness of breath, fluid retention, and even sexual desire. Ironically, most of these symptoms can be associated with many legitimate medical conditions. Yet for generations, hysteria was one of the most common diagnoses doctors assigned to women.

In more extreme cases, women were institutionalized in psychiatric hospitals or even subjected to hysterectomies. At times, hysteria was confused with epilepsy, and during the 17th century, it was widely believed to be a mental illness unique to women.

The treatments prescribed for this so-called illness were as revealing as they were controversial. Physicians often recommended inducing what was known as a “hysterical paroxysm,” which today we would recognize as pelvic massage or masturbation. Many doctors believed women reached this state because of sexual frustration, in a society where female sexuality was expected to exist only for reproduction, not pleasure.

By 1859, it was estimated that one in four women had been diagnosed with hysteria. Because these prescribed “treatments” could take hours to perform, physicians eventually created a device to make the process easier: the vibrator. In fact, the vibrator was invented nine years before the vacuum cleaner and ten years before the electric iron. The first mechanical vibrator appeared in 1870, and the first electric vibrator followed decades later.

Ultimately, the supposed cure for hysteria revealed far more about the limitations of medical understanding — and society’s control over women — than about women themselves. As the scientific study of the mind evolved through figures like Sigmund Freud and Jean-Martin Charcot, the concept of hysteria gradually lost its credibility as a medical diagnosis.

So if any gentleman ever dares to call a woman “hysterical,” he might want to consider first whether he — or the system he represents — may actually be the cause of her distress.

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