Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

Hysteria has always been a social phenomenon in which multiple
social discourses touch each other, cross its surface and rejoin in a new
picture. Although Central and Eastern Europe is still today marked by a lack of
historical research on gender, health, psychiatry and social work, some
researchers have nonetheless looked at the phenomenon of hysteria. 1
Teaching gender through the diagnosis of hysteria helps students to
understand that every single encounter between a social worker and a user or
client is not gender neutral but incorporates dimensions of traditional gender
inequality. The helper regardless of her/his gender assumes, at a symbolic level,
the role of the male agent, who has been historically constructed as active and
objective. In contrast, clients or users, regardless of their gender, have been
deemed passive and instrumentalised. Historically, women have been regarded
by both men and women as more vulnerable, dependent, incapable of making
autonomous decisions and prone to illness and madness. Gender awareness
therefore always demands that we also give attention to women’s narratives
when they are in the position of being service users, since their knowledge is
not only subjective but reflexive and competent.
The interconnectedness of gender and mental health diagnosis shows that
women’s mental health distress often reflects their multiple and conflicting responsibilities,
which they carry out on a daily basis (paid work, unpaid work and caring
for others). Women receive ambivalent messages, being seen as dependent and
weak even when they are the main carers and breadwinners. This may cause anxiety
and mental health distress. Teaching gender through diagnosis must promote an
understanding of the social construction and use of diagnosis, since mental health
diagnoses have direct consequences for women in terms of their life experiences,
their multiple burdens and the conflicting messages directed towards them.
Historical Overview
There is no doubt that hysteria, known from ancient times, became one of
the most popular medical diagnoses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. 2 Hysteria, regarded initially as an illness of the womb influencing
1
Sandor Vari, The case study of Ilma a famous hysteric at the turn of the century (unpubl. paper presented at the
CEU Gender Perspectives Series, Budapest, 1997); Darja Zaviršek, “A Historical Overview of Women’s Hysteria in
Slovenia“. The European Journal of Women’s Studies 7, no.2, (2000).
2
Ellen Bassuk, “The Rest Cure: Repetition or Resolution of Victorian Women’s Conflict?” in The Female Body in
Western Culture, ed. Susan Rubin Suleiman (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1986); Ussher, Jane, Women’s
Madness. Misogyny or Mental Illness (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991).
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