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Women and Madness
Feminist icon Phyllis Chesler's pioneering work, Women and Madness, remains startlingly relevant today, nearly 50 years since its first publication in 1972. With over 2.5 million copies sold, this seminal book is unanimously regarded as the definitive work on the subject of women's psychology. Now back in print this completely revised and updated edition from 2005 adds to her original research and findings perspectives on the issues of eating disorders, postpartum depression, biological psychology, important feminist political findings, female genital mutilation and more.
434 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1972
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7502 people want to read
About the author
Phyllis Chesler
37 books396 followersPhyllis Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at City University of New York. She is a best- selling author, a legendary feminist leader, a psychotherapist and an expert courtroom witness. Dr. Chesler has published thousands of articles and, most recently, studies, about honor-related violence including honor killings. She is the author of 20 books, including Women and Madness and An American Bride in Kabul. Her forthcoming book is titled Requiem for a Female Serial Killer, about serial killer Aileen Wuornos.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
November 28, 2007
Phyllis Chessler looked at women's "Craziness" as it was defined by patriarchal culture (remember this is early in neo-feminism, maybe thirty years ago) as:
Anything that made them want to have their own lives, defined by themselves, not by the men in their lives.
She examined her belief that "mental illness" in a women was anything that was inconvenient for men. She proved her case brilliantly. The "warehousing" of the mentally ill was in vogue then, and women could be locked up in mental institutions for years over an instance of postpartum depression. There was so much more to it than I can write here, and anybody who wasn't born under patriarchy will question the necessity for such a book. It was a book of phenomenal social importance then, and is still frightening valid in many women's lives and circumstances today. Still an important book.
It should be required reading in high school.
Anything that made them want to have their own lives, defined by themselves, not by the men in their lives.
She examined her belief that "mental illness" in a women was anything that was inconvenient for men. She proved her case brilliantly. The "warehousing" of the mentally ill was in vogue then, and women could be locked up in mental institutions for years over an instance of postpartum depression. There was so much more to it than I can write here, and anybody who wasn't born under patriarchy will question the necessity for such a book. It was a book of phenomenal social importance then, and is still frightening valid in many women's lives and circumstances today. Still an important book.
It should be required reading in high school.
July 16, 2019
La segunda sección de «Mujeres y locura» me ha gustado aún más si cabe que la primera. En ella Chesler entrevista a mujeres institucionalizadas, lesbianas, racializadas y feministas buscando una conexión entre ese entorno social y la terapia así como la efectividad de la misma. Son estremecedoras las partes en las que reproduce diálogos que mantuvo con ellas: la soledad, la marginación, la incomprensión, el doble baremo psiquiátrico...
🥀
En el último capítulo, Chesler reflexiona sobre Maternidad, feminismos y liberación de la mujer de las ataduras tradicionales. Hace hincapié en que las mujeres no somos tampoco seres de luz, en que buena parte de nuestra desunión ha sido el enfrentamiento condicionado y en cómo nos relacionamos entre nosotras (y se relacionan con nosotras) exigiendo(nos) comprensión, empatía, sacrificio, dulzura, etc...
«A los hombres también los protege, en cierto sentido, el hecho de que, universalmente, nadie espera que sean agradables».
Y recuerdo aquí las recientes críticas que ha recibido la capitana de la selección femenina de fútbol de EEUU, Megan Rapinoe, por firmar un balón a un chico y no mirarle.
🥀
Es una parte que, como el resto del libro, subrayé profusamente con citas como estas:
📝 «Las mujeres han de ser perfectas (diosas) o, de lo contrario, son fracasadas (putas)».
📝«Se perseguían de manera más activa las “contribuciones” de Betty Freidan, Gloria Steinem o Kate Miller a la causa de una mujer en concreto que las del Ejército, General Motors o el Vaticano, instituciones con muchísimos más recursos». (Seguro que aquí también se les ocurren varios símiles de actualidad).
📝«Las mujeres sólo viven juntas en estados de vergonzosa restricción o absoluta necesidad».
🥀
Termino «Mujeres y locura» y solo puedo dar las gracias a @contintametienes por haber reeditado este imprescindible. Es difícil en tan poco espacio resumir todos los temas que aborda, a cada cual más interesante. Lo dejo en mi escritorio porque sé que lo consultaré a menudo y, además, será lectura en enero de #LasEntusiastas (elegida por ellas con entusiasmo 💜)
#MujeresyLocura #PhyllisChesler #autorasreferentes #feminismos #leoautorastodoelaño
🥀
En el último capítulo, Chesler reflexiona sobre Maternidad, feminismos y liberación de la mujer de las ataduras tradicionales. Hace hincapié en que las mujeres no somos tampoco seres de luz, en que buena parte de nuestra desunión ha sido el enfrentamiento condicionado y en cómo nos relacionamos entre nosotras (y se relacionan con nosotras) exigiendo(nos) comprensión, empatía, sacrificio, dulzura, etc...
«A los hombres también los protege, en cierto sentido, el hecho de que, universalmente, nadie espera que sean agradables».
Y recuerdo aquí las recientes críticas que ha recibido la capitana de la selección femenina de fútbol de EEUU, Megan Rapinoe, por firmar un balón a un chico y no mirarle.
🥀
Es una parte que, como el resto del libro, subrayé profusamente con citas como estas:
📝 «Las mujeres han de ser perfectas (diosas) o, de lo contrario, son fracasadas (putas)».
📝«Se perseguían de manera más activa las “contribuciones” de Betty Freidan, Gloria Steinem o Kate Miller a la causa de una mujer en concreto que las del Ejército, General Motors o el Vaticano, instituciones con muchísimos más recursos». (Seguro que aquí también se les ocurren varios símiles de actualidad).
📝«Las mujeres sólo viven juntas en estados de vergonzosa restricción o absoluta necesidad».
🥀
Termino «Mujeres y locura» y solo puedo dar las gracias a @contintametienes por haber reeditado este imprescindible. Es difícil en tan poco espacio resumir todos los temas que aborda, a cada cual más interesante. Lo dejo en mi escritorio porque sé que lo consultaré a menudo y, además, será lectura en enero de #LasEntusiastas (elegida por ellas con entusiasmo 💜)
#MujeresyLocura #PhyllisChesler #autorasreferentes #feminismos #leoautorastodoelaño
October 17, 2010
So this is an amazing, wonderful, shocking, revelatory book that is well-researched, beautifully written, thoughtful and that frames a moral imperative of undeniable power. It is also among my favorite feminist texts, and whenever I open it to look something up, I inevitably find myself rereading entire sections or chapters because I can't put it down.
Nevertheless, I only gave it four stars. I have some criticisms of it, which explain the non-perfect rating, but I love it so much I feel conflicted about that non-perfect rating. I'd give it 4 1/2 or 4 3/4 if fractional ratings were allowed on this site.
The book was first written in 1972, but the edition I have is a revised one from 2005, in which she addresses how much things have changed since she first wrote it, both in terms of science and politics. Politically, the mental-health professions are not the bastions of patriarchy they were when Chesler first wrote about them: lots of women are in these professions, and lots of therapists are feminists, and incorporate feminist principles into their practice. More obviously, our understanding of the biological underpinnings of mental illness has improved, and with it our ability to treat them.
Another reviewer criticized Chesler for ignoring actually seriously ill women in favor of healthy women whose disobedience or nonconformity was called illness as a pretext for locking them up; I don't know if this person read the revised edition or not, but in the book I read she does acknowledge disabling mental illness. She goes out of her way to state that she does not wish to romanticize mental illness, nor to argue against any treatment that relieves a mentally ill person's suffering and enables that person to live a longer, fuller life.
She also discusses some famous case histories of women who suffered actual mental breakdowns, who clearly needed help, but who were not really helped by the treatment they got. These women included Zelda Fitzgerald, Bertha Pappenheim (better known as "Anna O."), Ellen West, Catharine Beecher, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Sylvia Plath.
Far more disturbing to me were her descriptions of real women who were not insane at all, and did not seek treatment for themselves, but who were committed to lunatic asylums by husbands and fathers who wanted them out of the way. Those women include Elizabeth Packard (whose theological opinions differed from her husband's, and whose crime was to speak these ideas in public), Adriana Brinckle (who sold some pieces of furniture she hadn't fully paid for, and was locked up for almost thirty years), and Freud's other famous patient "Dora" (whose father was basically pimping her out to some other guy, and who was quite understandably upset about that).
(She also discusses a FASCINATING study by a psychiatrist named Shirley Angrist that compared women mental patients who had been released from the asylum, women who had been re-hospitalized at least once, and normal housewives, and found that mental health had little to do with whether a woman was pronounced cured or not: rather, the determining factor seemed to be her willingness to keep house and defer to her husband. This study was done in 1961).
There is also a very long section, making up the majority of the book, that contains Phyllis Chesler's own original research, which was a series of detailed interviews with a bunch of women who had been treated for mental illnesses. She divided her subjects up into categories, though she admits there is a lot of overlap between some of them: women who had been in sexual relationships with their therapists, women who had been hospitalized for mental illness, lesbians, feminists, and "Third World women," which seems to be a confusing label for poor women of color. (I say it is confusing because some or all of the women in this group are Americans; "Third World" to me connotes foreign origin as well as dark skin, poverty and disenfranchisement.) All of these women describe experiences that did not help them; only some were ever actually mentally ill; and lots of them, especially the women of color, the women who were institutionalized long-term, and the lesbians, tell horrible tales of abuse. Almost all of the lesbians were committed just because they were lesbian.
There is a recurring Greek-mythology motif that never quite seems to belong; Chesler explores female archetypes from that canon, particularly myths that explore mother-daughter relationships, like those of Demeter and Persephone or Clytemnestra and Electra. These sections were very interesting, and poetic, and gave me new ways to see these stories I've known since I was a child, but they don't really mesh with the rest of the book. There are a few areas of thematic commonality --- one of Chesler's ideas is that women check themselves into asylum so much because we are so starved for mother-love --- but for the most part they seem more in keeping with her later books, which focus on relationships between women, than with this book.
I also really wanted to see her discuss women with developmental disabilities, as the same concerns about institutional abuse and power dynamics apply to them.
Ultimately, I want people to read this, even if it is incomplete and most of the stories it tells are old. I think the ethical questions it raises about how we treat mental illness, and the extent to which we do not treat people with mental illnesses like People Who Matter, and the extent to which the institutions we have set up for those members of our society who can't take care of themselves tend to breed abuse, neglect and authoritarianism, are very, Very, VERY important. So I recommend this to everyone --- not my usual practice when reviewing a book about such a specialized topic, especially a history book, but this one is just that necessary. It shines a critical light where most people are content not to look.
Nevertheless, I only gave it four stars. I have some criticisms of it, which explain the non-perfect rating, but I love it so much I feel conflicted about that non-perfect rating. I'd give it 4 1/2 or 4 3/4 if fractional ratings were allowed on this site.
The book was first written in 1972, but the edition I have is a revised one from 2005, in which she addresses how much things have changed since she first wrote it, both in terms of science and politics. Politically, the mental-health professions are not the bastions of patriarchy they were when Chesler first wrote about them: lots of women are in these professions, and lots of therapists are feminists, and incorporate feminist principles into their practice. More obviously, our understanding of the biological underpinnings of mental illness has improved, and with it our ability to treat them.
Another reviewer criticized Chesler for ignoring actually seriously ill women in favor of healthy women whose disobedience or nonconformity was called illness as a pretext for locking them up; I don't know if this person read the revised edition or not, but in the book I read she does acknowledge disabling mental illness. She goes out of her way to state that she does not wish to romanticize mental illness, nor to argue against any treatment that relieves a mentally ill person's suffering and enables that person to live a longer, fuller life.
She also discusses some famous case histories of women who suffered actual mental breakdowns, who clearly needed help, but who were not really helped by the treatment they got. These women included Zelda Fitzgerald, Bertha Pappenheim (better known as "Anna O."), Ellen West, Catharine Beecher, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Sylvia Plath.
Far more disturbing to me were her descriptions of real women who were not insane at all, and did not seek treatment for themselves, but who were committed to lunatic asylums by husbands and fathers who wanted them out of the way. Those women include Elizabeth Packard (whose theological opinions differed from her husband's, and whose crime was to speak these ideas in public), Adriana Brinckle (who sold some pieces of furniture she hadn't fully paid for, and was locked up for almost thirty years), and Freud's other famous patient "Dora" (whose father was basically pimping her out to some other guy, and who was quite understandably upset about that).
(She also discusses a FASCINATING study by a psychiatrist named Shirley Angrist that compared women mental patients who had been released from the asylum, women who had been re-hospitalized at least once, and normal housewives, and found that mental health had little to do with whether a woman was pronounced cured or not: rather, the determining factor seemed to be her willingness to keep house and defer to her husband. This study was done in 1961).
There is also a very long section, making up the majority of the book, that contains Phyllis Chesler's own original research, which was a series of detailed interviews with a bunch of women who had been treated for mental illnesses. She divided her subjects up into categories, though she admits there is a lot of overlap between some of them: women who had been in sexual relationships with their therapists, women who had been hospitalized for mental illness, lesbians, feminists, and "Third World women," which seems to be a confusing label for poor women of color. (I say it is confusing because some or all of the women in this group are Americans; "Third World" to me connotes foreign origin as well as dark skin, poverty and disenfranchisement.) All of these women describe experiences that did not help them; only some were ever actually mentally ill; and lots of them, especially the women of color, the women who were institutionalized long-term, and the lesbians, tell horrible tales of abuse. Almost all of the lesbians were committed just because they were lesbian.
There is a recurring Greek-mythology motif that never quite seems to belong; Chesler explores female archetypes from that canon, particularly myths that explore mother-daughter relationships, like those of Demeter and Persephone or Clytemnestra and Electra. These sections were very interesting, and poetic, and gave me new ways to see these stories I've known since I was a child, but they don't really mesh with the rest of the book. There are a few areas of thematic commonality --- one of Chesler's ideas is that women check themselves into asylum so much because we are so starved for mother-love --- but for the most part they seem more in keeping with her later books, which focus on relationships between women, than with this book.
I also really wanted to see her discuss women with developmental disabilities, as the same concerns about institutional abuse and power dynamics apply to them.
Ultimately, I want people to read this, even if it is incomplete and most of the stories it tells are old. I think the ethical questions it raises about how we treat mental illness, and the extent to which we do not treat people with mental illnesses like People Who Matter, and the extent to which the institutions we have set up for those members of our society who can't take care of themselves tend to breed abuse, neglect and authoritarianism, are very, Very, VERY important. So I recommend this to everyone --- not my usual practice when reviewing a book about such a specialized topic, especially a history book, but this one is just that necessary. It shines a critical light where most people are content not to look.
August 30, 2022
very very interesting especially as a woman who has been in therapy/on medication; going to listen to ladies by fiona apple on a loop now
February 9, 2021
"¿cómo entraban en el pasado las mujeres norteamericanas al psiquiátrico? la respuesta es: contra su voluntad y sin previo aviso".
Ada Metcalf (1876) escribió: "ahora está muy de moda y resulta muy sencillo hacer que una persona parezca loca. Si un hombre se cansa es su esposa, o si pierde la cabeza por otra mujer, no le cuesta mucho hacer que la metan en una institución de este tipo"
ensayo donde la autora nos describe en un primer momento los psiquiátricos como instituciones patriarcales peligrosas y nos muestra la violencia que se ha ejercido durante el diecinueve y el veinte contra las mujeres que eran recluidas a la fuerza en este tipo de instituciones. La mayoría de estas mujeres no estaban locas sino que eran consideradas así por tener comportamientos diferentes a los "propios de su género" , o simplemente empezaron a suponer una carga para sus maridos o familia.
Dividido en dos partes , la primera más científica nos habla de la locura, los manicomios, la psicología clínica tradicional y la más actual, el papel de la mujer en el manicomio y una crónica mitológica fascinante para resolver por qué el término demencia va asociado a mujer.
Y la segunda parte nos trae el abuso de terapeutas a sus pacientes, las vivencias de las mujeres institucionalizadas , las lesbianas, mujeres y raza el feminismo.. todo esto apoyado con entrevistas a internas/presas donde se demuestra con estos testimonios toda esa violencia y abusos ejercida contra las mujeres.
Ada Metcalf (1876) escribió: "ahora está muy de moda y resulta muy sencillo hacer que una persona parezca loca. Si un hombre se cansa es su esposa, o si pierde la cabeza por otra mujer, no le cuesta mucho hacer que la metan en una institución de este tipo"
ensayo donde la autora nos describe en un primer momento los psiquiátricos como instituciones patriarcales peligrosas y nos muestra la violencia que se ha ejercido durante el diecinueve y el veinte contra las mujeres que eran recluidas a la fuerza en este tipo de instituciones. La mayoría de estas mujeres no estaban locas sino que eran consideradas así por tener comportamientos diferentes a los "propios de su género" , o simplemente empezaron a suponer una carga para sus maridos o familia.
Dividido en dos partes , la primera más científica nos habla de la locura, los manicomios, la psicología clínica tradicional y la más actual, el papel de la mujer en el manicomio y una crónica mitológica fascinante para resolver por qué el término demencia va asociado a mujer.
Y la segunda parte nos trae el abuso de terapeutas a sus pacientes, las vivencias de las mujeres institucionalizadas , las lesbianas, mujeres y raza el feminismo.. todo esto apoyado con entrevistas a internas/presas donde se demuestra con estos testimonios toda esa violencia y abusos ejercida contra las mujeres.
April 12, 2021
Este libro es uno de los mejores ejemplos de cómo chocan las expectativas con la realidad. Mi valoración, creo, está muy condicionada por lo que esperaba encontrar y no he encontrado.
Tengamos en cuenta que el libro fue escrito en los 70. No podría estar más de acuerdo con sus reivindicaciones y sus denuncias, pero esas ideas me saben a algo ya demasiado manido, aunque no superado. Si hace 70 años se metía a las mujeres en manicomios cuando estorbaban, hoy se silencian a base de pastillas. Las cosas han cambiado pero no tanto, y es necesario sacudir el sistema abotargado, egoísta y pueril que nos rodea. Pero dicho esto, insisto en que el tema de la locura tiene, para mí, muchas y mucho más interesantes aristas que tratar, y me da la sensación de que el texto da vueltas y más vueltas a las mismas ideas, sin avanzar ni tratar temas que creo que son al menos igual de relevantes.
¿Hay tendencia a ciertas patologías en las mujeres?
¿Tiene esto una base neural, física, demostrada?
¿Existen instituciones o iniciativas serias que tratan la mente en la mujer de forma específica?
¿Y qué pasa con las mujeres que SÍ están locas?
Porque Chesler dialoga con mujeres que no lo estaban, o que al menos tenían trastornos que de haberse tratado podrían haber devenido en una mejoría de su bienestar. Cita a algunas de mis favoritas como Sylvia Plath o Virginia Woolf, a las que se les achaca depresión o bipolaridad. Pero no nombra a las demás, a las que tenían Alzheimer, o afasias, o parálisis cerebral. ¿Qué ocurre con ellas? ¿Se manifiestan estas patologías de forma diferente en hombres y mujeres? ¿Y cómo se les puede ayudar?
He encontrado realmente interesantes los testimonios que recoge, y de veras creo que lanza temas muy certeros. Pero en lo que a mí respecta me quedan casi las mismas preguntas que al principio de leer el libro y, si bien he disfrutado del recorrido, no siento que me haya aportado lo que buscaba, que son argumentos para dignificar la locura ante cualquier interlocutor. Mea culpa, tal vez.
Tengamos en cuenta que el libro fue escrito en los 70. No podría estar más de acuerdo con sus reivindicaciones y sus denuncias, pero esas ideas me saben a algo ya demasiado manido, aunque no superado. Si hace 70 años se metía a las mujeres en manicomios cuando estorbaban, hoy se silencian a base de pastillas. Las cosas han cambiado pero no tanto, y es necesario sacudir el sistema abotargado, egoísta y pueril que nos rodea. Pero dicho esto, insisto en que el tema de la locura tiene, para mí, muchas y mucho más interesantes aristas que tratar, y me da la sensación de que el texto da vueltas y más vueltas a las mismas ideas, sin avanzar ni tratar temas que creo que son al menos igual de relevantes.
¿Hay tendencia a ciertas patologías en las mujeres?
¿Tiene esto una base neural, física, demostrada?
¿Existen instituciones o iniciativas serias que tratan la mente en la mujer de forma específica?
¿Y qué pasa con las mujeres que SÍ están locas?
Porque Chesler dialoga con mujeres que no lo estaban, o que al menos tenían trastornos que de haberse tratado podrían haber devenido en una mejoría de su bienestar. Cita a algunas de mis favoritas como Sylvia Plath o Virginia Woolf, a las que se les achaca depresión o bipolaridad. Pero no nombra a las demás, a las que tenían Alzheimer, o afasias, o parálisis cerebral. ¿Qué ocurre con ellas? ¿Se manifiestan estas patologías de forma diferente en hombres y mujeres? ¿Y cómo se les puede ayudar?
He encontrado realmente interesantes los testimonios que recoge, y de veras creo que lanza temas muy certeros. Pero en lo que a mí respecta me quedan casi las mismas preguntas que al principio de leer el libro y, si bien he disfrutado del recorrido, no siento que me haya aportado lo que buscaba, que son argumentos para dignificar la locura ante cualquier interlocutor. Mea culpa, tal vez.
December 27, 2009
Phyllis Chesler knows little of and chooses not to focus on what the actual expereince of being mad (and being labeled mad) is like for women who have legitimate illnesses, and chooses to instead focus on how madness is precieved in women. In this respect, she is like the professionals she criticizes - equally giving her diagnosis (nontraditional female in rebellion) and not listening to those who are labled - accuaretly or not - as mad. She has made madness a social construct but ignores the reality that true insanity is a dehibilitating expereince that should be treated. She chooses to focus not on those who are truely mad - perhaps three pages to the subject of shizophrenia, only to discuss how it used to be precieved - but instead on maragnialized groups who have encountered the mental health profession. She talks about how the mental health profrofession can be used to "normalize" these women.True enough and somebody should be saying it. Perhaps the book is very outdated, but I found myself frustrated that she focuses on women who choose to be in therapy for a precieved need, as oppossed to the realities of those who have to meet with a physcatrist and/or therapist because they do have a legitamate illness and it is required. In the end, she did nothing to liberate those who are truly mad, and simply ignored them as if they are not part of the equation. Would be a good book, if it weren't for this reality.
November 25, 2018
So for a book that I feel like is super popular (as it says on this cover, millions of copies have been sold), this does not have many Goodreads reviews. I wonder if this is because it was published in the 70s? I do not know. Anyway, this was another that I had to read for class. Actually--I only had to read the a couple parts for class, but I decided to read the entire thing because 1. I'm a completionist when it comes to books but also 2. I thought it was very interesting!
The reason this only gets 3 stars is just because a LOT of the material went right over my head. I was very glad that even though we're not reading the entire book in class, we're going over all the chapters, because I needed that extra help to fully comprehend a lot of the ideas Chesler addresses this book. I also probably didn't agree with EVERYTHING in here, but it's hard to pin down exact examples because a lot of the time I wasn't 100% what she was saying, so I don't know all of her exact perspectives.
Anyway, I never would have read this otherwise, because it's a bit of a slog through depressing topics, but I definitely feel more educated for having done so!
The reason this only gets 3 stars is just because a LOT of the material went right over my head. I was very glad that even though we're not reading the entire book in class, we're going over all the chapters, because I needed that extra help to fully comprehend a lot of the ideas Chesler addresses this book. I also probably didn't agree with EVERYTHING in here, but it's hard to pin down exact examples because a lot of the time I wasn't 100% what she was saying, so I don't know all of her exact perspectives.
Anyway, I never would have read this otherwise, because it's a bit of a slog through depressing topics, but I definitely feel more educated for having done so!
June 3, 2024
Para las mujeres es más segura la depresión que la violencia física!!!!!
Es más bien un 3.5
Es más bien un 3.5
November 5, 2024
more academic than i thought it would be and i mean you can definitely tell it was written in the 70s but i loved the chapter past, present and future, the interviews were good too.
July 17, 2020
Acabo de terminar de leer MUJERES Y LOCURA de Phyllis Chesler. Me lo cogí para el club de lectura del próximo sábado. Sinceramente, cuando lo compré, pensé : pedazo tocho. No esperaba para nada que un estudio sobre mujeres y salud mental fuera tan fácil de leer. Me han encantado las entrevistas y las preguntas finales que sólo muestran lo mucho que nos queda por hacer, amigues.
February 7, 2012
First, as everyone (includding me) seems to misunderstand the title - this is not book about the madness in women (although there's some of that), it's a lot more on how it has been used as a label against them, to stop them from deviating from the societal ideas about their place and purpose.
There are some problems with this book - some statements are unsupported, it tries to make you feel like all this is your fault and on some levels does seem to have been written with only female readers in mind.
On the other hand, the information in the book, especially the part with the interviews will be an eye-opener to most people. There are also some very good explanations of things which are otherwise hard to understand (for example, why men don't see the point in women's conversations where it seems like nothing is being said).
It can easily be said that it's one of the good feminist books.
There are some problems with this book - some statements are unsupported, it tries to make you feel like all this is your fault and on some levels does seem to have been written with only female readers in mind.
On the other hand, the information in the book, especially the part with the interviews will be an eye-opener to most people. There are also some very good explanations of things which are otherwise hard to understand (for example, why men don't see the point in women's conversations where it seems like nothing is being said).
It can easily be said that it's one of the good feminist books.
January 23, 2022
Factual book
Women and Madness 1972. Updated 2005.
I heavily referenced this book in the 90’s as part of my Nurse Training/ degree . I was fascinated with its’ subject that there are double standards in mental health and illness and that women are often diagnosed and penalised due to their gender, race, sexuality and behaviours, exposing the paternalism and bias in psychiatry.
I remember wanting to buy it at the time but at about £60 it was too expensive for my st nurse bursary but decades later it’s been updated by Chesler (2005) and now only a third of the price.
It’s a really interesting but not a light hearted read around the history of women and mental illness.
Women and Madness 1972. Updated 2005.
I heavily referenced this book in the 90’s as part of my Nurse Training/ degree . I was fascinated with its’ subject that there are double standards in mental health and illness and that women are often diagnosed and penalised due to their gender, race, sexuality and behaviours, exposing the paternalism and bias in psychiatry.
I remember wanting to buy it at the time but at about £60 it was too expensive for my st nurse bursary but decades later it’s been updated by Chesler (2005) and now only a third of the price.
It’s a really interesting but not a light hearted read around the history of women and mental illness.
January 24, 2019
A must-read for anyone interested in the history of institutionalized women, the emergence of feminism in the field of psychology, and about the human psyche as it relates to female role-models in religion, whether Christian (the virgin Mary, Ruth, etc.) or pagan (Demeter, Persephone, Electra, etc.). There is a LOT of material here. Originally written in 1972 (!!) and given a new preface and introduction (and minor edits throughout) in 2005, this work remains extremely relevant in 2019.
March 6, 2019
Un libro increíblemente completo para entender la relación entre las mujeres y la "locura" que se nos asocia con exagerada frecuencia y ligereza. A través de la literatura, la historia de la medicina, y con entrevistas personales, la doctora Chesler desgrana poco a poco todas aquellas situaciones en las que se declara loca a una mujer... y quién decide que lo es. Es ameno, claro y muy interesante.
September 5, 2019
Essential reading to understand how much we don't understand but also how much we have learned. Very dense so prepare to be furious at the system and take breaks.
June 26, 2022
I usually can finish books that I don’t really like this book was an exception. I could not finish this book, not what I thought it would be.
June 18, 2025
DNF, Chesler raises some excellent points but at times the references to Greek mythology to be a bit tedious.
February 3, 2024
More like 2.5 stars. The book just annoyed me for some reason.
November 30, 2020
First compiled and written in the early '70s, this revised edition released in the infancy of the new century still relies heavily on its original data. There are references to progress or cultural changes in the intervening 30-35 years, but in large part they act as little more than footnotes or asides to the author's theses from what is now half a century ago. That said, a lot of it is still very much relevant to the state of women's place in society, their perceived value in both the home and the workplace, the ways they are exploited and endangered, and how all these feed into their own self-esteem and overall mental health. One section in particular struck me profoundly: "Women alone and in groups, including feminist groups, found it hard to abandon the virulent double standard of male-female behavior. They still do. Paradoxically, while women must not "succeed," when they *do* succeed at anything, they have still failed if they're not successful at *everything*. Women must be perfect (goddesses) or they're failures (whores).... If a woman accomplishes a valuable task she, unlike men (who after all, are mortal), still has failed if she has, for example, abandoned the daily care of her children or her looks in order to do so." That hits really close to home, and it hopefully will cause me to check my reaction when it happens again.
June 23, 2021
It's so interesting to me to read first-edition second-wave feminist texts. Reading the original version gives you some insight into what these women were trying to achieve before the rest of us came along. This is the first of the 60's and 70's works I've read that mention women of color and women in poverty in any truly meaningful manner, which seems revolutionary given the feminist movement's roots in upper-class whiteness. I liked Chesler's framing of mental illness against the various archetypes in ancient myths, but would have much rather had some further analysis of actual women and their experiences with mental health problems, institutionalization, and medication. I'm sure later editions probably do go into further detail; I just had to buy this first edition when I stumbled across it. Because, c'mon.
May 23, 2016
Féministe et paru dans les débuts des mouvements psy féministes américains (qui nous manquent toujours en France), ce livre dépeint avec une réalité parfois encore actuelle les discriminations que subissent les femmes en matière de "santé mentale", pensée par et pour les hommes. Les biais diagnostics comme les biais des traitements et enfermements sont consciencieusement documentés et démontrés, les études ("pour" et "contre") listées.
Bien que datant de 1972, ce livre reflète encore une certaine réalité. Plus tant dans l'exercice quasi exclusivement masculin de la psy (-chiatrie, -chologie) que dans l'abus de diagnostics psychiatriques et de sur-traitements des femmes qui feraient valoir leurs droits d'être humains. On y lit des biais encore observés. On pourrait y ajouter d'autres pathologies et d'autres biais désormais connus.
Bien que datant de 1972, ce livre reflète encore une certaine réalité. Plus tant dans l'exercice quasi exclusivement masculin de la psy (-chiatrie, -chologie) que dans l'abus de diagnostics psychiatriques et de sur-traitements des femmes qui feraient valoir leurs droits d'être humains. On y lit des biais encore observés. On pourrait y ajouter d'autres pathologies et d'autres biais désormais connus.
December 3, 2008
Good, good stuff, and still very relevant despite its publication date of 1972. Chesler posits the theory that women are declared insane and embark on "psychiatric careers," either as lifelong therapy patients or as asylum patients, when their behavior becomes inconvenient for the men around them. Women are most often branded insane for two reasons: rejecting the female role (refusing to marry and breed, focusing on careers, choosing active independence rather than passive dependence) and accepting the female role (marrying, having children, choosing passive dependence and exhibiting "traditional" female characteristics, all of which mirror deep depression).
July 21, 2019
This book is full of information. I read it for a class in college. It may take a while to read because of the severitu of the info, but it is a good book. I was unaware of how women were/are treated in psychiatric institutions and in private therapy. And in society in general. It is an eye opening book!
October 2, 2011
An excellent look into how women have been pathologized and mistreated throughout history, with a well researched base. The topic is serious but is written to be accessable to all. A good look at mental health in women, or lack of it.
January 31, 2013
The delivery of feminist doctrine: all women have the choice of low paying jobs, welfare, and illegal prostitution outside of marriage. Great dialogue for embarking on further study into the psychological insecurity, economic dependence, and sexual repression of woman's culture.
February 16, 2008
love this book.
Read
September 10, 2015redundant, opaque. i cringed through the entire chapter on 'third world women'. she offers a lot of half-baked theories but no real solutions.
June 14, 2021
And excellent and horrifying read
May 18, 2024
BRILLIANT
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