Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

symptoms that a man must recognise to avoid an unfortunate bride. Arnsek
claims that the character and the human soul are best reflected in the eyes,
face and the body. Pathology and illness can therefore be recognised on the
surface of women’s faces. He stresses that “strongly developed, bony cheeks, in
particular the lower jaw, in relation to the skull, indicate a lack in a woman’s
spiritual life.” 19 He also gives some more obvious examples: “Red rimmed eyes,
with frequent inflammation and hypersensitivity to light indicate scrofula, a
chronic inflammation thought to cause trachoma or the ‘Egyptian disease’,
which can lead to blindness if not cured; short-sightedness, farsightedness,
innate curved mouth, distorted gait, curved writing (now to the left, now to
the right and now upright) shows a distorted, inconsistent, cunning, capricious
mind and a character full of inner contradictions.” 20
Teaching questions
Several western researchers have shown how hysteria was socially constructed and
used as an instrument for the subjugation of women. Not much is known about
these issues from the perspective of the Central and Eastern European countries
and beyond. Today gender-specific behaviour continues to affect diagnosis but in
different ways. Even today, some mental health diagnoses are prevalent among
girls and women and some among boys and men.
1. What are the prevalent mental health diagnoses for girls and
women and for boys and men in your local context? How may
one explain their gendered dimensions?
Diagnosis as Part of Gender Politics
For most of Central Europe the final decades of the nineteenth century were
marked by major social changes related to industrialisation and urban modernisation
in the region. 21 Such huge shifts necessitated a major re-examination
of women’s economic, social and symbolic status in these changing societies.
From the end of the eighteenth century a political demand of workers’ unions
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
21
See Susan Zimmermann, “Frauenbestrebungen und Frauenbewegung in Ungarn,” in Szerep es alkotas, ed. Beata
Nagy and Margit Sardi. (Budapest: Csokonai Kiado, 1997), 171–204.
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