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state and national elections: "I went to bed last
night a slave, I awoke this morning a free woman:
My vote counts as much as any Negro's—as any
dago's. Oh! it's glorious."
She grew up a free and independent girl who
herded cattle for her father on horseback as Indians
passed by on the open plain. Later, after the deaths
and lifelong loss of her Mother and favorite sister,
she spent a number of peripatetic years attempting
to establish herself as a working woman. She
taught, and, in small towns, worked in a number
of hotels as waitress and chambermaid. Eventually
she moved to Kansas City where she met her first
husband Johnny Shaw, a postal delivery man. She
has numerous doubts about this marriage and they
proved well founded as Johnny became an alcoholic
and quite verbally abusive. Her poignant entries
speak to the despair of a woman literally trapped
in a marriage going nowhere down the long line
to the future. She mentions several friends who
divorced but rejects that alternative for herself. The
marriage vow represented a serious moral commitment
which she felt she must uphold no matter how
unhappy or uncomfortable.
She suffered three miscarriages but gave birth to
her "wee girlie" in 1892. Unfortunately, this child
lived only a few months and Martha suffered her
loss desperately. She would never bear another
child. During this time, her husband contracted TB
and they took an arduous journey to Los Angeles,
hoping that the climate would prove helpful. Martha
knew he was too far gone. Her entries about
his suffering combined with her resentment of his
continued mistreatment are an eloquent portrait of
an intimate conflict.
Relief at his death in 1893 brought the determination
never to marry again; but shortly thereafter she
married Fred Farnsworth, also a postal worker.
This was a very happy association and they remained
faithful helpmates for life. It is thanks to Fred's
second wife that the diary of 4,000 pages was kept
safely and donated to the Kansas State Historical
Society.
The diary describes the growth of the community
and country as well as Martha's particular life.
Games, parties, political issues, inventions,
transportation, travel, visiting lecturers, preachers
and plays are all delightfully described. Martha interestingly
had the gift of second sight and recorded
numerous intimations of illness and death. The
editors liken her writing style to that of sentimental
novels of the day: slightly exaggerated, occasionally
moralistic, melodramatic. Yet I feel that
view distances her unnecessarily from our present
experience.
To me, she is an earlier version, indeed the
underlapping, to aspects of my own mother, born
1902. A superb small town clubwoman, she was
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capable of organizing any one or 10 events with her
hands tied. Yet to hear her describe the difficulties
of achieving exactly what she wanted (and got) was
to listen to high drama. Martha's diary brings those
same self-aggrandizing, endearing complaints
echoing from past to present, bringing forth completely
a feeling of continuity with the small
town, heartland American life which we all
inherit.
—Nancy Lloyd
WOMEN, POWER AND THERAPY, edited by
Marjorie Braude (Harrington Park Press, N.Y.;
$14.95 paperback) and
AGAINST PSYCHOTHERAPY by Jeffrey
Moussaief Masson (Athenium, N.Y.; $18.95
hardcover)
I do have a bias in approaching these two books:
For the past decade I've felt increasing alarm at the
skill with which the powers-that-be have employed
medicine/psychotherapy to mask social problems;
to defuse social protest. Historically, for instance,
a man's sexual use of his child was as socially permitted
(for those who chose to act on that permission)
as the beating of his wife. Yet within moments
of the "discovery"of the widespread incidence of
child sexual exploitation in the home, incest was
declared a "symptom of family dysfunction". We
had incest counselors, incest therapists, offender
treatment programs, family therapy, and on and on.
Perhaps most alarming was not that society was so
comfortable with individualizing a problem of
licensed power abuse—but that the victims
themselves were so earnestly and eagerly enlisted
in this effort to make the political the personal.
At issue in Jeffrey Masson's book, Against
Psychotherapy, is whether psychotherapy as concept
can—even potentially—be a benevolent force.
He begins:
' 'This is a book about why I believe psychotherapy,
of any kind, is wrong. Although I criticize many
individual therapies and therapists, my main objective
is to point out that the very idea of
psychotherapy is wrong. The structure of
psychotherapy is such that no matter how kindly
a person is, when that person becomes a therapist,
he or she [sic] engages in acts that are bound to
diminish the dignity, autonomy, and freedom of the
person who comes for help."
Masson certainly builds an excellent case. From
the chilling stories of the use of the "diagnosis"of
"moral insanity"to confine non-conforming
women of the 19th century in France, through
Freud and Fliess' gross mistreatment of "Dora",
through the sins and sadisms of John Rosen,
Masson builds a clear and convincing case, with
compelling evidence.
Masson writes that often he is asked, "Granted
that psychotherapy is flawed, what would I put in
it's place that is better?"
In reply, he quotes a feminist friend: "Nobody
thinks of asking: what would you replace misogyny
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