Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

In addition, Savnik draws attention to women’s reproductive function.
For him women have another feature that often causes nervousness, which is
their “task given by nature”. Women have to perform their natural mission of
miraculous creation but are at the same time inclined not only to nervousness
but also to other mental illnesses. This is the real concern of the writer, who
eventually addresses all women with a moral message: “In this short reflection
I have tried to draw the attention of the fair sex to several cases who appear to
have a calm surface, mostly showing their pleasant sides and humble faces, and
seeming to be extremely innocent, but who are at the slightest contradiction
able to show their other bad sides, as signs of threatening nervousness.” 17 This
moral warning was addressed to women themselves, since, as Savnik believed,
their emotional and unstable nature seduces them into so many dangerous
traps that they must, like small children, be protected from themselves.
The moral message was the same everywhere. Hysteria or insanity is
immanent in women, who because of their biological differences get ill more
often than men. Being different meant being different from men, whose
behaviour was constructed as the norm. Much older ideas of sexual difference now
became connected with women’s immorality, due to dependency on substances
like alcohol and drugs, work in the sphere of public life, or sexuality. From
the end of the nineteenth century the discourse on women shifted between
two extremes, the adoration of women and their procreative mission, and admonitions
about their cunning nature, diminished intelligence and frequent
inclination to infidelity. The writers started to use their medical authority to
‘cultivate’ women, since only a cultivated woman could be a proper mother
and educator for her children.
After World War I hysteria was more often listed as a mental disease
among other forms of insanity. It also became the one which women could
bring with them into a marriage. In 1926 the magazine Health (Zdravje)
published an article entitled “Find Yourself a Healthy Bride” by a doctor called
Andrej Arnsek. 18 In it he first draws the reader’s attention to the fact that
a healthy mother is of utmost importance to the health of children and the
happiness of a family. He therefore finds it important to acquaint (male) readers
with the risks of marrying unhealthy young women, and lists the external
17
Ibid.
18
Andrej Arnsek, ‘Find Yourself a Healthy Bride,’ Health 9, no.1. (1926a)
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