FIRELIGHT
Marketing, Research, Media & Public Communication Consultant
Prepared by: Journey McAndrews│ Fall 2012 │ Contact: (859) 619-0962
Journey McAndrews
COMM 682
Dr. Ann Andaloro
Fall 2012
THE BIRTH OF MEDICAL MISOGYNY & INEQUALITY
Galen was an early
physician who believed
a woman’s womb
travelled all through her
body—often rising up to
the throat and causing
her physical ailments,
when she was not
pregnant or filled with
the sex of a man. In
essence, Galen’s theory
erroneously denied
women a proper
diagnosis and
treatment (not that
either would have been
very good at this young
stage in medical
“science”)
Galen (AD 129–c. 200)
The “wandering womb” theory is born
With the publication of George Cheyenne's The
English Malady, a treatise on the “dis-eases” of
the European upper-class, terms like the spleen,
melancholy, and hysteria—the catchall
“medical” phrase for nearly all ailments
experienced by the female body, enter what
could be called early popular culture. These
medical “conditions” become an area of interest
and study in the medical profession, literature,
and society of this era. Centuries later,
Medical
science enters
social,
religious, and
political realms
Popular Culture
still espouses
medical misogyny
Leftover from
ancient history
INTRODUCTION
Like other aspects of society, the medical field is a landmine of gender stereotypes. From the
unnecessary rise in C-sections as a birth method to a deficiency of information on prostate cancer, men
and women receive vastly different “treatments” in hospitals and doctors offices. This landmine is more
precarious in the treatment of mental illness where firm gender stereotypes are even more prevalent—the
overly emotional female who is weak and prone to mental problems, verses the macho stoic male who is
robust and thus detached from “extreme” emotional expressions.
And yet, long before people get sick, stereotypes about the male and female body are all around in Pop
Culture, the media, advertisements, magazines, news, and so on. Even reputable peer-reviewed medical
journals are not immune to regressing into the Dark Ages of medicine when it comes to how they
approach, measure, analyze, and treat mental diseases of men and women.
Understandably, many of the differences in treatment are predicated on perceived, real, and imagined
biological differences between men and women, but with the knowledge that we now have on the issues
of gender inequality, sexism, and stereotypes, the time has come for medicine to make some real
advances in the way it treats human mental illness.
HYSTERIA, INFANTICIDE, AND POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION
The female body presents an interesting study in the history of pop culture. Long before The Yellowwallpaper (a Victorian-era short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that explored the “horrors” of
postpartum depression, hysteria, and the “rest cure) and Andrea Yates (a woman who killed her
five children while in the throes of postpartum depression), early medical scholars and practitioners
were fascinated with the female body, but not because they—all of them men, wanted to learn about
female anatomy and physiology to better the lives of women and treat female diseases with the same
care and consideration as they treated the aliments of men, but because early medical scholars and
practitioners wanted to prove cultural beliefs about women to be true.
Moreover, a shroud also emerged over the male body and male psyche wherein neither could exhibit
the same “weaknesses” present in women. Thus, the male body was not as susceptible to inquiry and
interest, that is until the last 10-15 years, when the male body become more widely accessible in pop
culture and a result of changings in cultural thinking.
HYSTERIA, INFANTICIDE, AND POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION
Infanticide is the act of a parent killing his or her offspring, and the media is often unduly
harsh in its portrayal of women who commit such acts. However, in many of the cases, such as
Andrea Yeats, mental illness was present for years before such violence occurred. While
mental illness does not justify such acts, it is important to note that women who are prone to
depression have a higher rate of postpartum depression, but treatment is often delayed or
ignored because people assume the “baby blues” are normal, which they are, but only in a
mild form.
Mothers, children, birth, life, all remain woefully misunderstood despite tons of research, and
women are still categorized as overly emotional, thus real mental illness may not be detected
as it should be.
HYSTERIA, INFANTICIDE, AND POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION
Hysteria was indeed a catchall for every aliment a women exhibited. What is so shocking is that
many women had legitimate illnesses that went untreated because doctors and therapists
applied a blanketed “cure” for treatment. This cure was often just bed rest wherein a woman
was denied access to her family, any mental or social stimulation, and coddled and cosseted
as though she were a child.
Gilman presents the “rest-cure” accurately in her short-story The Yellow-wallpaper. Keep in
mind that while the fictional woman in the short story was diagnosed with hysteria and given
the “rest-cure” treatment, Gilman wrote the story from her own experience with postpartum
depression. Later after she had recovered (by refusing to follow the “cure”), she left her
husband and child and embarked on a long and fruitful writing career.
Gilman became one of millions of women who were “treated” unfairly by the medical
profession, but what is disconcerting is that women are still treated poorly when it comes to
postpartum depression, and men’s mental health issues go largely unnoticed.
HYSTERIA, INFANTICIDE, AND POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION
How does hysteria, infanticide, and postpartum depression relate to the way the media
portrays the medical issues of women and the subsequent treatments? How are these
three topics related to pop culture?
History is important to humans. In order to understand the present we must examine the
past. While new incarnations of sexism and gender inequality crop up each day, the basis
for such conditions were created in the past and perpetuated through the ages.
Hysteria was tied to the female reproductive system, birth, sexual relations between men
and women, and the medical profession, but its use as a tool of oppression and sexism is
far more interesting and poignant. Modern cases like Andrea Yeats echo the remnants of a
medical past marred by sexism and gender inequality.
HYSTERIA, INFANTICIDE, AND POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION
Pop culture isn’t all bad when it comes to how it portrays the mental
health issues of women.
In recent years celebrities have brought the issue of inaccurate
treatment for postpartum depression into the spotlight. People like
Brooke Shields, Marie Osmond, Courtney Cox, and Gwyneth Paltrow all
suffered from the disorder and spoke out to help other women, their
partners, and families who were dealing with postpartum depression.
MALE CELEBRITY MENTAL ILLNESS
Male celebrities are also prone to mental illness, and while such conditions are
often masked by wild drinking and drug binges—stories that the media loves to
sensationalize, many male celebrities have also spoken out about their battles with
bipolar disorder, clinical depression, and so on.
What has resulted from the exposure of male celebrity mental illness is a shift in
cultural thinking. Keep in mind that many of these celebrities are well respected
and successful, so when they speak out on the issue of their own mental illness it
helps lessen the stigma attached to men who suffer from mental disorders.
“EARLY” POPULAR CULTURE AND CURRENT POPULAR CULTURE:
UNDERSTANDING THE OVERLAP
Okay, so maybe Popular Culture and Pop Culture are new terms and technically didn’t exist
during the time in which Galen practiced medicine, nor did it exist in the Victorian Era when
Sigmund Freud brought hysteria into its cultural/medical heyday, but keep in mind that
whatever is a popular topic or event in any era becomes part of the culture of the day, thus
if hysteria was all the rage, like Autism or Depression is now, it would have become
entrenched in society and part of the popular discussion.
Moreover, Popular Culture as we know it today is a hodgepodge of all history that came
before it and then is mixed with its own unique history as it creates it moment to moment.
THE MENTAL ILLNESS “GAP” IN GENDER (1 OF 4)
Pay attention to statistics—women are more likely to be diagnosed with a mental
illness than men. This fact is alarming because it indicates sexism in both directions.
Men are less likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness because (1) there is a social
stigma attached to the “mentally weak” male, (2) men hide their mental illnesses more
readily by allocating excessive time to work, abusing alcohol, drugs, or becoming
obsessed with hobbies.
Likewise, men are more likely to suffer in silence for years as mental illness and
emotional issues go unresolved and ignored because they are too embarrassed or
ashamed to seek help for their conditions.
THE MENTAL ILLNESS “GAP” IN GENDER (2 OF 4)
The World Health Organization states, “Overall rates of psychiatric disorder are
almost identical for men and women but striking gender differences are found in
the patterns of mental illness.”
World Health Organization goes on to note: “Gender determines the differential
power and control men and women have over the socioeconomic determinants of
their mental health and lives, their social position, status and treatment in society
and their susceptibility and exposure to specific mental health risks. Gender
differences occur particularly in the rates of common mental disorders depression, anxiety and somatic complaints. These disorders, in which women
predominate, affect approximately 1 in 3 people in the community and constitute a
serious public health problem.”
THE MENTAL ILLNESS “GAP” IN GENDER (3 OF 4)
On Askmen.com, Jacob Franek calls mental illness in men “a silent crisis,
a sleeper issue that has crept into the minds of millions.”
It isn’t just Pop Culture that is to blame for men being treated unfairly by
the medical profession, the issue of cultivating a culture of men who
suffer through physical and mental illness began centuries ago, and
indicates a historical gender bias that is equally damaging to both men
and women, and yet, until now, feminism and pop/popular culture has
directed its focus only on gender inequality in medical treatments for
women. Men suffer from sexism too!
THE MENTAL ILLNESS “GAP” IN GENDER (4 OF 4)
The World Health Organization also finds that “[g]ender bias occurs in the treatment of
psychological disorders. Doctors are more likely to diagnose depression in women compared
with men, even when they have similar scores on standardized measures of depression or
present with identical symptoms. Female gender is a significant predictor of being prescribed
mood altering psychotropic drugs. Gender differences exist in patterns of help seeking for
psychological disorder.”
“Women are more likely to seek help from and disclose mental health problems to their primary
health care physician while men are more likely to seek specialist mental health care and are
the principal users of inpatient care. Men are more likely than women to disclose problems with
alcohol use to their health care provider. Gender stereotypes regarding proneness to emotional
problems in women and alcohol problems in men, appear to reinforce social stigma and
constrain help seeking along stereotypical lines. They are a barrier to the accurate identification
and treatment of psychological disorder.”
MEDICAL NEWS AND TREATMENTS IN THE MEDIA
It is confusing the way the media reports on treatments, research, and the latest news
on mental health issues.
Thankfully, there is a cultural shift at work in the way we think about mental health,
and once again the media is playing a dual/role—both embracing and challenging
gender stereotypes.
Also, the medical field is slowly realizing that gender inequality in treatments of
mental illness needs to change. Many of the leading mental health websites, WebMD,
The National Institute of Mental Health, Mental Health America, all address the
inequality issue in their articles and findings, and add to this a cultural shift in
thinking, media and celebrity exposure on mental health issues of men and women,
and suddenly we have reason to hope that eventually equality will prevail in mental
health treatments.
DENYING EFFECTIVE CARE
There are countless ways men and women can be denied effective medical care,
whether it be related to socio-economic status, ethnicity, and so on, but most
inequality stems from historically pervasive believes about the biological, emotional,
mental, and social “differences “ of men and women.
In the case of women like Andrea Yates, her medical history is marred by too many
doctors who turned her loose and sent her home, too many births despite a history of
postpartum depression, too much domestic abuse, and too little understanding of the
reality of her mental illness.
In the case of men like Mel Gibson, we see a meltdown played out in the media,
substance abuse, a frenzy hell-bent on capturing his every flaw, and a gossip-mill
flowing 24/7, and only when the fascination dies down do people stop and say, “Hey,
get that guy some counseling and treatment.”
MEDICAL NEWS AND TREATMENTS IN THE MEDIA
MEDICAL NEWS AND TREATMENTS IN THE MEDIA
The mass-shooting outside a movie theater by gunman and “madman” James Holmes
has been a hot topic in the media.
The deaths of innocent people are a tragedy, but the media has sensationalized the
story. Suddenly mental illness becomes encroached in a “mad-man” mentality as
stories like this morph into a media spectacle.
FILM & TELEVISION
In recent years numerous television shows have tackled mental illness
in their plotlines.
Law & Order
Grey’s Anatomy
House
Scrubs
Monk
Many shows often rely on stereotypes or clichés when portraying
characters with mental illness, but a few have won awards for
shedding light on the often difficult and overlooked issues associated
with mental illness.
FILM & TELEVISION CONTINUED . . .
Numerous films explore mental illness as well:
50 First Dates
Rain Man
The Virgin Suicides
Sylvia
Revolutionary Road
Psycho
Raising Cane
Fight Club
Primal Fear
Black Swan
As Good as it Gets
A Beautiful Mind
and many, many more
CONCLUSION
The reality is there is no conclusion in the way the pop culture and the media portrays mental
illness. It is an issue trapped in a state of unrest. However, in recent years attitudes and
understanding have changed. We are beginning to see that both men and women suffer from
mental health problems and that all humans need to be treated with equal care and concern in
order to effectively diagnose and treat such conditions.
In the past medical “findings” on the workings of the female body demonstrated “deficiencies”
and “inferiorities” that allowed men to stay in power, kept women shut away in houses and
asylums, and ensured that male dominance would continue throughout the world.
What is most disturbing in the history of the medical treatment of women is that the female body
itself became a locus for “special” diseases that so sharply contrasted to male diseases (i.e.
normal human disease) that women couldn’t help but emerge as more physically weaker and
delicate, thus less apt to participate in masculine realms.
CONCLUSION CONTINUED . . .
Of course as men continued to enjoy power over women throughout all aspects of life, they became
powerless when it came to addressing and treating their own mental illnesses. Men were categorized
as strong and stoic and forced to culturally and medically embody these characteristics, so how could
they admit when they had mental health issues?—to do so was considered taboo and going against
the socially established gender dichotomy.
In order to understand how the age-old malady of gender inequality in the treatment of mental illness
in men and women became an ailment for pop-culture, we must understand the role a hermeneutics
of recovery plays in human mental health history, that is to say, we must go back into the past and
examine the political, religious, and historical climate that created a medical environment set up to
humiliate, intimidate, and oppress both men and women. It is safe to say that when medical men can
prove through “science” that the female body has “inborn” imperfections and weaknesses, then all
other aspects of culture will follow their “findings”.
CONCLUSION CONTINUED . . .
Likewise, culture outside the medical field also influences the medical climate. Indeed,
individual families who call their male children sissies when they get hurt and cry, are, in
fact creating an emotional break in these children that lingers long into adulthood. Boys
do cry just as well as girls. Emotions are part of being human. Males and females are
equally prone to mental illness and deserve equal and fair treatments for their ailments.