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Madwives: Schizophrenic Women in the 1950s
"An important contribution to the study of mental illness, gender roles, and family interaction. . . . An insightful and well-written book demonstrating the pervasive consequences of gender roles for the deepest levels of mind and emotion."--American Journal of Sociology
"Opens a window onto the lives of the mentally ill and their families."--Women's Review of Books "Warren's analysis is painstaking and illuminating, and there is plenty of material here to interest those concerned with issues of gender and mental illness."--Times Higher Education Supplement
"The women make the author's major points in riveting fashion, speaking eloquently of enforced dependency and subjugation, the helplessness of rigid and constantly reinforced gender-role boundaries, and outright manipulation by their husbands."--Contemporary Psychology
"Can marriage make women go crazy? Carol Warren addresses this question by emphasizing the connections between gender-sterotypical behavior and the institutionalization of married women in the 1950s, using interviews collected . . . during 1957-61. . . . An interesting sociological reworking of the original pychologically oriented interpretation of the interviews."--Oral History Review
Carol A. B. Warren is a professor of sociology at the University of Kansas and author of The Court of Last Mental Illness and the Law.
"Opens a window onto the lives of the mentally ill and their families."--Women's Review of Books "Warren's analysis is painstaking and illuminating, and there is plenty of material here to interest those concerned with issues of gender and mental illness."--Times Higher Education Supplement
"The women make the author's major points in riveting fashion, speaking eloquently of enforced dependency and subjugation, the helplessness of rigid and constantly reinforced gender-role boundaries, and outright manipulation by their husbands."--Contemporary Psychology
"Can marriage make women go crazy? Carol Warren addresses this question by emphasizing the connections between gender-sterotypical behavior and the institutionalization of married women in the 1950s, using interviews collected . . . during 1957-61. . . . An interesting sociological reworking of the original pychologically oriented interpretation of the interviews."--Oral History Review
Carol A. B. Warren is a professor of sociology at the University of Kansas and author of The Court of Last Mental Illness and the Law.
296 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 12, 2017
A devastatingly sad book about crazy women in a study that was carried out about them in the 1950s. The individuals were then interviewed again in the 1970s to see how well they had become or worse as was sometimes the case. The book was an incredible insight into the mind of a group of about 15 women who for some reason or another got interned into a mental institute (Napa hospital) in California. There was often a trigger point that was sometimes a culmination of various things that had happened to these women that triggered their diablo ex machina moment. A cheating husband, the loss of a child, the loss of a job, a move to another county, a disease. The study was an incredible insight not only into them but the dynamics of their relationships with their spouses and their children and the effects and counter-effects these individuals had on each other. If you’ve got a spouse that you think could occasionally be prone to bouts of insanity then this is a must read (I hope not all of you at least reading this are nodding profusely :)
The book also talked about the potentially beneficial effects of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy). This is basically shock therapy where electrical thingys are tied to your temple and you are essentially electrocuted lightly. The end effect is that you tend to forget the issues you had with your spouse and a lot of the history and beef you had with them. The negative is that you may forget a lot more about your past then you wanted. It was really popular then and is still used today. Andrew Solomon didn’t talk too negatively about it in his book about depression.
Another interesting angle the book talked about was the expectations that were put on women of that time. This was the boom period after WW2 and America was flying. The swinging sixties were about to kick in, the beats were buzzing – the world was in a better mood post war. However, American women at this time were expected to play a housewife’s role unlike they have be expected to today. The husbands of those individuals in this study did not on the whole want them to work because their role was to stay at home and do the housewife role and the husband’s role was to bring in the money. The dichotomy was as simple as that. If depression kicked in and women were required to hold down a job and look after the children and look after the house and if the men were not expected to help out then the result was pretty simple- the women broke after a while and were instituted at the worse cases.
One of my favourite parts of the book was:
“The social situations of families in capitalist-state societies is such that with intimacy comes not only a sense of order, a place of the self but also stress and alienation. This was particularly the case for fifties women, since their situation was both obdurate economically and legitimated ideologically. Today although women are still housewives they do possess more economic independence than thirty years ago (this book was written in the 80s) and they can draw on the ideology of feminism to understand the sources of the damaged female self.”
The book also covered topics such as the pre-patient, the mental patient in the hospital, the ex-patient returning from the mental hospital and returning to a normal life.
The book also talked about the potentially beneficial effects of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy). This is basically shock therapy where electrical thingys are tied to your temple and you are essentially electrocuted lightly. The end effect is that you tend to forget the issues you had with your spouse and a lot of the history and beef you had with them. The negative is that you may forget a lot more about your past then you wanted. It was really popular then and is still used today. Andrew Solomon didn’t talk too negatively about it in his book about depression.
Another interesting angle the book talked about was the expectations that were put on women of that time. This was the boom period after WW2 and America was flying. The swinging sixties were about to kick in, the beats were buzzing – the world was in a better mood post war. However, American women at this time were expected to play a housewife’s role unlike they have be expected to today. The husbands of those individuals in this study did not on the whole want them to work because their role was to stay at home and do the housewife role and the husband’s role was to bring in the money. The dichotomy was as simple as that. If depression kicked in and women were required to hold down a job and look after the children and look after the house and if the men were not expected to help out then the result was pretty simple- the women broke after a while and were instituted at the worse cases.
One of my favourite parts of the book was:
“The social situations of families in capitalist-state societies is such that with intimacy comes not only a sense of order, a place of the self but also stress and alienation. This was particularly the case for fifties women, since their situation was both obdurate economically and legitimated ideologically. Today although women are still housewives they do possess more economic independence than thirty years ago (this book was written in the 80s) and they can draw on the ideology of feminism to understand the sources of the damaged female self.”
The book also covered topics such as the pre-patient, the mental patient in the hospital, the ex-patient returning from the mental hospital and returning to a normal life.
September 8, 2014
I'm not sure I can bear to finish reading this. It brings up so many fears and angers about how women have been treated in order to force them to conform. I knew this goes on, but to read documentation and first-person accounts, that's distressing to another order of magnitude.
Still I'm immensely grateful to Warren for her meticulousness and courage in speaking truth to power.
Still I'm immensely grateful to Warren for her meticulousness and courage in speaking truth to power.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews