The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1890-1980

Elaine Showlater's The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-1980 is a brilliant discussion of the perception and treatment of mental illness, focusing on the female perspective. Showalter's research is thorough, and her presentation of information shows a care and attentiveness to her material that increases the confidence of the reader. Drawing on a cultural sangria of material, The Female Malady traces the systematic (and often blundering) treatment of mental disease, focusing on how women influenced the establishment as not only patients, but commentators in the form of employees and writers, activists and advocates. The majority of the text focuses on the plight of the Victorian woman, and how doctors and the medical profession responded to what they perceived as the nervous energy attached to the rising discontent of women as a gendered class. However, the text does not end there, and moves on to discuss everything from evolving practices in institutions, the feminization of mental disease, the presence and treatment of male patients, psychoanalysis, and the feminist therapy movement. Showalter skillfully blends historical observation and study with careful literary analysis to give her reader and understanding of the material from several angles and increase their awareness of the historical implications of insanity not just for the evolution of women, but for the sciences and literary fields alike. At just 250 pages, The Female Malady is by no means a complete history, but proves to be a useful volume on its own, especially for those considering cultural and literary implications of insanity beyond the straight-forward studies of psychology or psychoanalytic theory.