Women throughout history have been considered the weaker sex. They
are commonly believed to be more susceptible to emotional breakdowns and
mental illness as they are deemed to be not as psychologically durable
as men. Are women truly a weaker sex mentally, or do we perceive them
this way because of patriarchal society and existing stereotypes? Are
women fragile or are the breakdowns simply results of years of male
domination? I believe women’s mental illness has, for the most
part, been created by man.Women during this time were deemed to be highly susceptible to becoming mentally ill as they did not have the mental capacity of men, and this risk grew greatly if the woman attempted to better herself through education or too many activities.
In fact, women were seen as most likely having a mental breakdown sometime during their life as “the maintenance of [female] sanity was seen as the preservation of brain stability in the face of overwhelming physical odds”. Thus, women often suppressed their feelings, as to not appear mad and reassumed the passive, housewife role.The idea of the Wondering Womb developed during this time, as madness was associated with menstruation, pregnancy, and the menopause. The womb itself was deemed to wander throughout the body, acting as an enormous sponge which sucked the life-energy or intellect from vulnerable women? (Ussher 74). Thus, women became synonymous with madness, as they were deemed to be emotional and unstable. If a woman of the Victorian era were subject to an outburst (due to discontentment or repression), she would be deemed mad.
The word Hysteria became the
general term for women with mental illness and cures included bed rest,
seclusion, bland food, refrain from mental activities (such as reading),
daily massage, and sensory depravation. Though these treatments do not
seem too appalling, they were comparable to solitary confinement and
would often drive a woman to further insanity.Anorexia, though prominent for many years prior, was officially recognized as a diseaase in 1873 (Ussher 77).It
flourished during the nineteenth century as women wished to exemplify
their femininity. In denying food, a woman could truly be passive and
become a weightless accessory for her husband. The physical and
spiritual ideal of anorexia also became a status symbol for many women.
Working class women had to eat in order to have energy to work. Thus,
only middle to upper class women could afford to be anorexic. Cures
included being admitted to an asylum where women rested and were
excessively fed. The idea of nymphomania developed during the Victorian era. One-third of all patients in Victorian asylums suffered from this mental illness. It was described as an irresistible desire for sexual intercourse and a “female pathology of over-stimulated genitals” (Goldberg 80). Nymphomania included much more than a simple sexual drive, however, as it was also associated with a loss of sanity. It was described as an “illness of sexual energy levels gone awry, as well as the loss of control of the mind over the body” (Goldberg 86) and included women who allowed their bodies to become subject to uncontrollable movement as nymphomaniacs “threw themselves to the floor, laughed, danced, jumped, lashed out, smashed objects, tore their clothes, grabbed at any man who came before her” (Goldberg 89). It was also believed that those who suffered from this madness would, without treatment, eventually become a raving maniac, robbed over her mind (Goldberg 87). A woman could be placed in an asylum for nymphomania if she was promiscuous, bore illegitimate children, was a victim of an assault or rape, was caught masturbating, or suffered from man-craziness, a term used during this time period to describe flirtatiousness. When a woman was brought to the asylum, she was subject to a pelvic exam where the doctor claimed she had an enlarged clitoris the size of a penis. Upon later inspection if the clitoris had returned to its normal size, she would be released and deemed cured. Cures for nymphomania included separation from men, bloodletting, induced vomiting, cold douches over the head, warm douches over the breasts, leeches, solitary confinement, strait-jackets, bland diet, and occasional clitorectomies.Spinsters and lesbians were considered a threat to society during the nineteenth century as these women chose an alternative lifestyle. They went outside the social norms of women as passive housewives, and instead made their own decisions. They were thought to be mentally ill, as doctors claimed being without continued male interaction would cause irritability, anaemia, tiredness, and fussing.
A PAINTING
The Awakening Conscience (1853) below is an oil-on-canvas painting by English artist William Holman Hunt, one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which depicts a young woman rising from her position in the lap of a man and gazing transfixed out of the window of a room.
Initially the painting would appear to be one of a momentary disagreement between husband and wife, or brother and sister, but the title and a host of symbols within the painting make it clear that this is a mistress and her lover. The woman's clasped hands provide a focal point and the position of her left hand emphasizes the absence of a wedding ring. Around the room are dotted reminders of her "kept" status and her wasted life: the cat beneath the table toying with a bird; the clock concealed under glass; a tapestry which hangs unfinished on the piano; the threads which lie unravelled on the floor; the print of Frank Stone's Cross Purposes on the wall; Edward Lear's musical arrangement of Tennyson's poem "Tears, Idle Tears" which lies discarded on the floor, and the music on the piano, Thomas Moore's "Oft in the Stilly Night", the words of which speak of missed opportunities and sad memories of a happier past. The discarded glove and top hat thrown on the table top suggest a hurried assignation. The room is too cluttered and gaudy to be in a Victorian family home; the bright colours, unscuffed carpet, and pristine, highly-polished furniture speak of a room recently furnished for a mistress. Art historian Elizabeth Prettejohn notes that although the interior is now viewed as "Victorian" it still exudes the "'nouveau-riche' vulgarity" that would have made the setting distasteful to contemporary viewers. The painting's frame is decorated with further symbols: bells (for warning), marigolds (for sorrow), and a star above the girl's head (a sign of spiritual revelation).
The mirror on the rear wall provides a tantalizing glimpse out of the scene. The window — opening out onto a spring garden, in direct contrast to the images of entrapment within the room — is flooded with sunlight. The woman's face does not display a look of shock that she has been surprised with her lover; whatever attracts her is outside of both the room and her relationship. The Athenæum commented in 1854:
ADDICTION
Patrick Carnes did much to popularise the concept of compulsive sexual behaviour as an addiction. It was his book that was published in 1983 and activated interest in the construct of sexual addiction. Hypersexuality is often associated with addictive or obsessive personalities, escapism, psychological disorders, low self-esteem, self-destructive behavior, lowered sexual inhibitions and behavioral conditioning. Alcohol, hormonal imbalance and change of life hormone levels (puberty, adulthood, middle age, menopause, seniors), behavior modification, operant conditioning and many drugs affect a person's social and sexual inhibitions, while reducing integral human bonding abilities for intimacy. Addiction is the state of behavior outside the boundaries of social norms which reduces an individual's ability to function efficiently in general routine aspects of life or develop healthy relationships.
Medical studies and related opinions vary among professional psychologists, sociologists, clinical sexologists and other specialists on sexual addiction as a medical physiological and psychological addiction, or representative of a psychological/psychiatric condition at all.
Dispute about the concept
Sexologists have not reached any consensus regarding whether sexual addiction exists or, if it does, how to describe the phenomenon. Some experts regard sexual addiction as a medical form of clinical addiction, directly analogous to alcohol and drug addictions. Other experts believe that sexual addiction is actually a form of obsessive compulsive disorder and refer to it as sexual compulsivity. Still other experts believe that sex addiction is itself a myth, a by-product of cultural and other influences. Some who have expressed doubts about the existence of sex addiction argue that the condition is instead a way of projecting social stigma onto patients.
An example of how far this critique sometimes goes is Marty Klein's claim that "The concept of sex addiction provides an excellent example of a model that is both sex-negative and politically disastrous." Klein singles out a number of features that he considers crucial limitations of the sex addiction model:
- pathology oriented
- pathologize non-problematic behavior
- clinically incomplete
- without context (both individual and situational)
- culturally bound
- politically exploited
These women refused food in order to appear
“feminine” and become a frail ornament for their husbands to show off.
They also furthered the idea of the passive housewife, lacking
personality or emotion.
Nymphomania was a fear of aggressive women.
Those who took a stand for their beliefs or exercised a sexual emotion
were deemed insane as they rejected the feminine ideal. Such women were
forced into asylums to keep others in line; they were sacrificed to show
that those who spoke up would be punished. Thus, the rest of the women
remained silent. And finally, spinsters and lesbians were a major threat
to male domination. These women preferred life without sexual
interaction with men. They rejected the social norms of woman as
passive, emotionless accessories and instead embraced personal choice.
They too were deemed insane and subject to male-induced public criticism
to try and reform them as well as fuel the idea that this sort of
behavior was not acceptable.
Did you know that the term nymphomania only applies to females? The male counterpart
is called satyriasis. Both words are inspired by Greek mythology:
nymphs are “minor deities represented as beautiful maidens” and satyrs
are “woodland creature[s] depicted as having the pointed ears, legs, and
short horns of a goat and a fondness for unrestrained revelry.” I guess
that’s where the term “horny” comes from?
Why are we all familiar with the term “nympho” and not “satyro”? Is it because a woman who is unable to control her sexual desires is more exciting or more newsworthy than a man with the same problem? More likely, it’s because a willingness to engage in constant sexual activity is considered normal when it comes to men. In fact, historically, the female problem of nymphomania has been taken much more seriously than the male counterpart. Treatments have included “cold baths, bromide sedatives, cauterization and, yes, clitoridectomy” (Peter Green, “All Sexed Up”, Los Angeles Times). (Painting: Nymphs and Satyr, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Wikipedia.)
Read more at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-facts-about-nymphomaniacs.php#ryWB3LlKzL9hddof.99
Why are we all familiar with the term “nympho” and not “satyro”? Is it because a woman who is unable to control her sexual desires is more exciting or more newsworthy than a man with the same problem? More likely, it’s because a willingness to engage in constant sexual activity is considered normal when it comes to men. In fact, historically, the female problem of nymphomania has been taken much more seriously than the male counterpart. Treatments have included “cold baths, bromide sedatives, cauterization and, yes, clitoridectomy” (Peter Green, “All Sexed Up”, Los Angeles Times). (Painting: Nymphs and Satyr, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Wikipedia.)
Read more at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-facts-about-nymphomaniacs.php#ryWB3LlKzL9hddof.99
nymphomania only applies to females? The male counterpart
is called satyriasis. Both words are inspired by Greek mythology:
nymphs are “minor deities represented as beautiful maidens” and satyrs
are “woodland creature[s] depicted as having the pointed ears, legs, and
short horns of a goat and a fondness for unrestrained revelry.” I guess
that’s where the term “horny” comes from?
Read more at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-facts-about-nymphomaniacs.php#ryWB3LlKzL9hddof.99
Read more at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-facts-about-nymphomaniacs.php#ryWB3LlKzL9hddof.99
nymphomania only applies to females? The male counterpart
is called satyriasis. Both words are inspired by Greek mythology:
nymphs are “minor deities represented as beautiful maidens” and satyrs
are “woodland creature[s] depicted as having the pointed ears, legs, and
short horns of a goat and a fondness for unrestrained revelry.” I guess
that’s where the term “horny” comes from?
Read more at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-facts-about-nymphomaniacs.php#ryWB3LlKzL9hddof.99
Read more at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-facts-about-nymphomaniacs.php#ryWB3LlKzL9hddof.99
nymphomania only applies to females? The male counterpart
is called satyriasis. Both words are inspired by Greek mythology:
nymphs are “minor deities represented as beautiful maidens” and satyrs
are “woodland creature[s] depicted as having the pointed ears, legs, and
short horns of a goat and a fondness for unrestrained revelry.” I guess
that’s where the term “horny” comes from?
Read more at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-facts-about-nymphomaniacs.php#ryWB3LlKzL9hddof.99
Read more at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-facts-about-nymphomaniacs.php#ryWB3LlKzL9hddof.99
nymphomania only applies to females? The male counterpart
is called satyriasis. Both words are inspired by Greek mythology:
nymphs are “minor deities represented as beautiful maidens” and satyrs
are “woodland creature[s] depicted as having the pointed ears, legs, and
short horns of a goat and a fondness for unrestrained revelry.” I guess
that’s where the term “horny” comes from?
Read more at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-facts-about-nymphomaniacs.php#ryWB3LlKzL9hddof.99
Male anxieties in relation to both physical and mental health in
the Victorian era often seem to have concentrated on the supposedly
baleful effects of masturbation, which was alleged to cause a wide range
of physical and mental disorders, and on venereal diseases, especially
syphilis. This brings us neatly into the subject of Victorian sexuality,
which has been a continuing topic of debate and fascination. It was seriously held, for example, that sexual appetite was
incompatible with mental distinction and that procreation impaired
artistic genius. Men were vigorously counselled to conserve vital health
by avoiding fornication, masturbation and nocturnal emissions (for
which a variety of devices were invented) and by rationing sex within
marriage. sickness and debility were frequently ascribed to masturbation - It was also claimed that 'masturbators' became withdrawn, flabby, pale, self-mutilating and consumptive.Read more at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-facts-about-nymphomaniacs.php#ryWB3LlKzL9hddof.99
Private sexual behaviour is hard to assess, though there are many hints that 'considerate' husbands, who did not insist on intercourse, were admired, not least because of the high maternal mortality rate. But there is plain evidence that the early Victorian family of six to eight or more children was on its way out by 1901: from the 1870s couples in all classes were choosing to limit and plan family size 'by a variety of methods within a culture of abstinence'. This took place despite the fact that contraceptive knowledge and methods were not publicly available, as the famous obscenity trial of Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh for publishing a sixpenny book on the subject in 1877 made clear.
Writers such as Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) attempted a detailed classification of 'normal' and 'perverse' sexual practices. This led to the identification of a 'third' or 'intermediate' sex, for which Ellis used the term 'sexual inversion'. Writer and social reformer Edward Carpenter (1844-1929), who lived with a younger male partner, adapted the word 'Uranian' (1899) to denote male and female homosexuality, and around the same time, Lesbian and Sapphic came into use as terms for female relationships. Apocryphally, these were also due to be criminalised in the 1885 legislation, until Queen Victoria declared them impossible, whereupon the clause was omitted - a joke that serves to underline a common, and commonly welcomed, ignorance, at a time when lurid, fictionalised lesbianism was often figured as an especially repulsive/seductive French vice.
Today, the best-known lesbian relationship in Victorian Britain has become that of Anne Lister of Shibden in west Yorkshire and her partner, with its distinctly erotic as well as romantic elements. Other couples include poets Katherine Bradley and her niece Edith Cooper,
who wrote collaboratively from the
1880s under the name Michael Field, and the Irish writers Edith
Somerville and Violet Martin. In the Victorian period itself, American
actress Charlotte Cushman 
and French painter Rosa BonheurIn the fields of gender, health, medicine and sexuality, the Victorians seldom lived up to their stereotypes. As with so many other areas of their ideas and practices, they grappled with complex, dramatically developing fields, always influenced by a wider global view.
According to their own testimonies, many people born in the Victorian age were both factually uninformed and emotionally frigid about sexual matters. Historically, it appeared that the licentious behaviour and attitudes of the Regency period had been replaced by a new order of puritan control and repression. . This helps explain why sexuality looms so large in art and medicine, for example, as well as in studies of the Victorian age.
Lately, evidence has shown that Victorian sex was not polarised between female distaste ('Lie back and think of England', as one mother is famously said to have counselled her anxious, newly married daughter) and extra-marital male indulgence. Instead many couples seem to have enjoyed mutual pleasure in what is now seen as a normal, modern manner. The picture is occluded however by the variety of attitudes that exist at any given time, and by individuals' undoubted reticence, so that information on actual experience is often inferred from demographic and divorce court records. Certainly, the 1860s were briefly as 'permissive' as the same decade in the 20th century, while the 1890s saw an explosion of differing and conflicting positions. Throughout, however, the public discussion of sexual matters was characterised by absence of plain speaking, with consequent ignorance, embarrassment and fear.The ratio of illegitimate births was relatively low, albeit a constant topic of drama in poetry, painting and fiction - notable examples being the outcast single mothers depicted in paintings by Richard Redgrave
By mid-century the Victorian conjunction of moralism and scientific investigation produced ideas of orthodox human sexuality. Popularly expressed, this amounted to 'Hogamus higamus, men are polygamous/Higamus hogamus, women are monogamous', with the added detail that 'the majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled by sexual feeling of any kind.BUT........
In a provocative twist on traditional ideas about Victorian gynecology, historian Rachel F. Maines discovered that doctors in the Victorian age routinely manually manipulated the vulva as a treatment for “hysteria” and brought their patients to sexual climax. During the 19th century and early 20th centuries, the term "hysteria” or became the catchall for any nervous affliction in women. The patient’s emotional and reflex excitability was exaggerated and the woman became victim to unusual sensations, often falling into fits. American doctors routinely treated this “malady” by manipulating of the vagina until the afflicted woman had a sexual climax. When female patients suffered hysterical or neurasthenic symptoms, doctors saw wonderful results from "pelvic massage," culminating in orgasm. The patient was pleased enough to guarantee her habitual patronage but physicians complained about this exhausting work and the vibrator was developed as a timesaving device that relieved doctors and prevented cramped hands.
Electricity has given so much comfort to womankind, such surcease to her life of drudgery. It gave her the vacuum cleaner, the pop-up toaster and the automatic ice dispenser. And perhaps above all, it gave her the vibrator. In the annals of Victorian medicine, a time of "Goetze's device for producing dimples" and "Merrell's strengthening cordial, liver invigorator and purifier of the blood," the debut of the electromechanical vibrator in the early 1880s was one medical event that truly worked wonders -- safely, reliably and repeatedly.
As historian Rachel Maines describes in her exhaustively researched if decidedly offbeat work, "The Technology of Orgasm: 'Hysteria,' the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction" (Johns Hopkins Press, 1999), the vibrator was developed to perfect and automate a function that doctors long had performed for their female patients: the relief of physical, emotional and sexual tension through external pelvic massage, culminating in orgasm.
For doctors, the routine had usually been tedious, with about as much erotic content as a wet tea bag. "Most of them did it because they felt it was their duty," Maines said in an interview. "It wasn't sexual at all." The vibrator, she argues, made that job easy, quick and clean. With a vibrator in the office, a doctor could complete in seconds or minutes what had taken up to an hour through manual means. With a vibrator, a female patient suffering from any number of symptoms labeled "hysterical" or "neurasthenic" could be given relief -- or at least be pleased enough to guarantee her habitual patronage. "I'm sure the women felt much better afterward, slept better, smiled more," said Maines. Besides, she added, hysteria, as it was traditionally defined, was an incurable, chronic disease. "The patient had to go to the doctor regularly," Maines said. "She didn't die. She was a cash cow."
Nowadays, it is hard to fathom doctors giving their patients what Maines calls regular "vulvalar" massage, either manually or electromechanically. But the 1899 edition of the Merck Manual, a reference guide for physicians, lists massage as a treatment for hysteria (as well as sulfuric acid for nymphomania).
Vibrators were also marketed directly to women, as home appliances. In fact, the vibrator was only the fifth household device to be electrified, after the sewing machine, fan, tea kettle and toaster, and preceding by about a decade the vacuum cleaner and electric iron -- perhaps, Maines suggests, "reflecting consumer priorities." Advertised in such respectable periodicals as Needlecraft, Woman's Home Companion, Modern Priscilla and the Sears, Roebuck catalog, vibrators were pitched as "aids that every woman appreciates."
Maines, head of Maines and Associates, a firm that offers cataloging and research services to museums and archives, first stumbled on her piquant subject while researching a paper on the history of needlework. Thumbing through a 1906 needlepoint magazine, she found, to her astonishment, an advertisement for a vibrator. When she realized there was no scholarly history of the vibrator and related "technologies of orgasm," she decided to research the topic, consulting libraries around this country and abroad. Her investigations led her to conclude that doctors became the keepers of the female orgasm for several related
reasons.
To begin with, women have been presumed since Hippocrates' day, if
not earlier, to suffer from some sort of "womb fury" -- the word
"hysteria," after all, derives from uterus. The result was thought to
be a spectacular assortment of symptoms, including lassitude,
irritability, depression, confusion, and palpitations of the heart,
headaches, forgetfulness, insomnia, muscle spasms, stomach upsets,
writing cramps, ticklishness and weepiness. Who better to treat the wayward female than a physician, and where better to address his ministrations than toward the general area of her rebellious female parts? Maines also proposes that women historically have suffered from a lack of sexual satisfaction -- that they needed somebody's help to have the orgasms they were not having in the bedroom. By the tenets of what she calls the “androcentric" model of sex, women were supposed to be satisfied by the motions of heterosexual intercourse -- the missionary position and its close proxies.
Yet as many studies have shown, at least two-thirds of women fail to reach orgasm through coitus alone, Maines said. At the same time, religious edicts against masturbation discouraged women from self-exploration." In effect," she writes, "doctors inherited the task of producing orgasm in women because it was a job nobody else wanted."
The vibrator remained a staple of the doctor's office and the proper wife's boudoir until the 1920s, Maines said, when it began showing up in stag films and quickly lost its patina of gentility. Vibrators are still widely available, of course -- unless you happen to live in Alabama, Georgia and Texas, where state legislatures have banned the sale of vibrators and other "sex toys." The American Civil Liberties Union is now vigorously challenging the Alabama statute. If Alabama permits the prescribing of the anti-impotence drug Viagra, the ACLU argues, how dare it tell women that they can't have their own electromechanical prescription for joy?
October 15th is Ada Lovelace Day. Never heard of her? Well you should!
If you learned that her annual day celebrates women in science and technology, then the clues are all there.
Countless Lovelace is the woman who envisioned the computer and wrote its first program.
She did that not during the Digital Revolution of the 20th century, but over 100 years before. It's taken that long for the world to catch up with her mathematical mind
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), born Augusta Ada Byron and now commonly known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Because of this, she is often described as the world's first computer programmer.
Lovelace was born 10 December 1815 as the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Byron.
All Byron's other children were born out of wedlock.Byron separated from his wife a month after Ada was born and left
England forever four months later, eventually dying of disease in the Greek War of Independence when Ada was eight years old. Ada's mother remained bitter at Lord Byron and promoted Ada's interest in mathematics and logic in an effort to prevent her from developing what she saw as the insanity
seen in her father, but Ada remained interested in him despite this
(and was, upon her eventual death, buried next to him at her request).Ada described her approach as "poetical science" and herself as an "Analyst (& Metaphysician)".
As a young adult, her mathematical talents led her to an ongoing working relationship and friendship with fellow British mathematician Charles Babbage, and in particular Babbage's work on the analytical engine. Between 1842 and 1843, she translated an article by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea on the engine, which she supplemented with an elaborate set of notes of her own, simply called Notes. These notes contain what is considered by some to be the first computer program—that is, an algorithm encoded for processing by a machine. Lovelace's notes are important in the early history of computers. She also developed a vision on the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on those capabilities. Ada’s mind-set of “poetical science” led her to ask basic questions about the Analytical Engine (as shown in her notes) examining how individuals and society relate to technology as a collaborative tool.In the 1840s, Ada flirted with scandals: firstly from a relaxed relationship with men who were not her husband, which led to rumours of affairs and secondly, her love of gambling. The gambling led to her forming a syndicate with male friends, and an ambitious attempt in 1851 to create a mathematical model for successful large bets. This went disastrously wrong, leaving her thousands of pounds in debt and being blackmailed by one of the syndicate, forcing her to admit the mess to her husband. Ada also had a shadowy, possibly illicit relationship with Andrew Crosse’s son John from 1844 onwards. Few hard facts are known about this because Crosse destroyed most of their correspondence after her death as part of a legal agreement. However, the relationship was strong enough that she bequeathed him the only heirlooms her father had personally left to her. During her final illness, Ada would panic at the idea of John Crosse being kept from visiting her.
Ada Lovelace died at the age of thirty-six, on 27 November 1852, from uterine cancer probably exacerbated by bloodletting by her physicians.The illness lasted several months, in which time Annabella took command over whom Ada saw, and excluded all of her friends and confidants. Under her mother’s influence, she had a religious transformation (after previously being a materialist) and was coaxed into repenting of her previous conduct and making Annabella her executor. She lost contact with her husband after she confessed something to him on 30 August that caused him to abandon her bedside. What she told him is unknown, but may have been a confession of adultery.
She was buried, at her request, next to her father at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottingham.
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