FOUR Hysteria, Feminism, and Gender

Showalter, Elaine

doi:10.1525/9780520309937-005

Cited by 110 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…Many believe her attraction to the Madonna symbolized a maternal transference (Krohn and Krohn 1982). 17 Others go further and claim that this maternal transference expressed deficits common to women in patriarchal society and should be viewed not only as personal pathology but also as social construction (Showalter 1993). Speculating about the relationship between women's hunger for maternal support and the devaluation of women, we suggest that Dora's hagiographic theme carries a transgressive motive.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transforming Feminine Categories: Genealogies of Virginity and Sainthood

Stiritz

Schiller²

2005

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

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The categories of virginity and sainthood, often used as norms of femininity, are historically and contextually constructed. Genealogies of these categories reveal definitions of female subjectivity in accordance with male desires. Traditional conceptions of virginity have implications for theories of female development and sexuality, conceptions of the psychoanalytic process, and theories of social symbolism. Notions of virginity as an unblemished state, the first penetration by a penis as an irrevocable transformation to womanhood, and defloration as a developmental milestone in female sexuality derive from male fantasies of female purity that translate into justifications for social structures of control and ownership. While fantasies of sainthood played significant roles in the work of both Sigmund and Anna Freud, their images of saints, which they did not analyze, were unconsciously shaped by a Victorian sensibility. Because the psychoanalytic legacy is androcentrically informed, analysts may be hampered in their efforts to treat the pathologies of perfection that continue to plague women. Contesting and unsettling conventional epistemological assumptions open up the categories of virginity and sainthood to images and representations of female autonomy and integrity. The critical analyses offered here contribute to theories of the plasticity of gender and the social construction of femininity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transforming Feminine Categories: Genealogies of Virginity and Sainthood

Stiritz

Schiller²

2005

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

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“…A more positive metaphor is that these women resembled double flowers, both beautiful and sterile. This could be interpreted as an illness or as being ahead of one’s time (Showalter, 1993, pp. 291–292).…”

Section: Transforming Private Pain Into Public Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In support of this argument, some women, such as Pappenheim, managed to transform emotional suffering in their youth into feminist action in their mature years, for example, Jane Addams, Josephine Butler, Hedwig Dohm, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Olive Schreiner, Alice Solomon, and Edith Wharton (Herndl, 1988; Kaplan, 1984, pp. 104–105; Showalter, 1993, pp. 292, 299).…”

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confidence: 99%

From "Anna O." to Bertha Pappenheim: Transforming private pain into public action.

Kimball¹

2000

History of Psychology

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Bertha Pappenheim ("Anna O,") was treated for hysteria by Josef Breuer when she was a young adult. As a mature adult she became a leading social worker, writer, and feminist activist in the German Jewish community. This article examines her therapy with Breuer, her own struggle for recovery, and some links between her earlier and later life, in particular the lack of intimate relationships in her life and her work against the victimization of women. Throughout the article psychoanalytic interpretations, social history, and feminist analyses are integrated to provide a contextualized examination of Pappenheim's life.

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“…3 3 I am aware of the misogynistic history but use it here in line with the feminist reappropriation of the term. See Showalter (1993). …”

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confidence: 99%

If I knew then what I know now

O’Shea

2021

Gender Work & Organization

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In this essay, I present an autoethnographic account of my gender affirmation surgery and subsequent recovery. Surgery is considered as the benchmark for people like me but remains little discussed. In the organizational literature the focus is on those who may transition and those who have transitioned, not on the surgery itself. It is glossed over in popular accounts to leave the impression that one goes to sleep one day and wakes fully formed the next. These accounts pay little heed to the somatic, embodied nature of surgery and issues of body dysphoria, euphoria, transition, potential detransition, and retransition. Such accounts affirm a binarized gender narrative where surgery normalizes bodies to meet the expectations of a cis‐normative society. Moreover such accounts do little justice as to what happens next since surgery is seen as the outcome of transition rather than part of the process.

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FOUR Hysteria, Feminism, and Gender

Cited by 110 publications

References 0 publications

Transforming Feminine Categories: Genealogies of Virginity and Sainthood

Transforming Feminine Categories: Genealogies of Virginity and Sainthood

From "Anna O." to Bertha Pappenheim: Transforming private pain into public action.

If I knew then what I know now

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