Introduction
In modern realities, especially in the current state of Western culture, an increase in clinical cases of men suffering from neurological disorders is almost universally observed. The interest of such statistics is the cultural aspect of this large-scale psychological change. Contemporary issues such as depression, bulimia, anorexia, and dissociative identity disorders have been commonly associated in the medical community and the public mind with the female gender.
It is necessary to analyze the history of the description and registration of these diseases throughout the existence and development of the discipline of psychiatry. Features of the evolution of this science and the changed specifics of the gender classification of nervous system disorders should be tied to the cultural transformations of the 20th and 21st centuries. Changes in culture and ethics influenced gender politics, which could not but affect men’s self-determination and the gender-based attribution of neurological disorders.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” as a Challenge to Gender Norms in Psychiatry
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is artistic proof that gender norms in early psychiatry were extremely strict, which has changed dramatically in the 21st century. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is one of the first clinically accurate descriptions of postpartum depression documented in the literature. The story is based on the author’s personal experience, and her background is, in many ways, crucial for understanding the condition described.
In fact, “Yellow Wallpaper” not only represents an important therapeutic case but also sheds light on the relationship between the mental state and the culture of a particular era. This connection will prove useful in explaining the problem of men increasingly suffering from nervous system diseases in the 21st century. The experience Gilman described certainly set in motion the process of transforming gender norms in psychiatry. Gilman based the story in part on her own life experiences, as she experienced postpartum depression.
An important document explaining Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s artistic intent is her preface to the story “Why I Wrote Yellow Wallpaper” (2014). Her personal experience of trying to overcome a depressive state was expressed in the advice of one of the specialists in nervous system diseases to choose the so-called rest treatment. It turned out to be, however, an extremely cruel way of helping since Gilman had to stay at home except for walks and limit social contacts and intellectual activity.
This is what led the writer to the deepest state of mental damage. Her treatment story is an example of the misrepresentation of women in the psychiatric community. Gilman proved that disease should not be tied to gender and that doing so could harm the patient and humiliate them.
The treatment demonstrates the sexism inherent in 19th-century psychiatry, which was criticized by Gilman and thus overcome in the 21st century when depression has become an acceptable disease for men. Gilman’s work was a very important step in seeing psychiatry as a patriarchal science that needed to be challenged and its methods questioned. It led to a non-binary shift in gender norms affecting all contemporary psychological discourse.
Rest Cure and Its Connection to Ego and Gender
Weir Michtell’s lecture, “The Evolution of Rest Healing,” deals with the case of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in an attempt to justify a treatment choice that was condemned by the story’s publication (2014). Weir describes a case of treating a woman with a history that looks suspiciously like that of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. He calls the woman in the essay “Miss G.”, forcing the reader to think that he means the writer, especially given the high intellectuality of the patient he emphasized.
It is interesting to note that both authors, Gilman and Weir Mitchell, hide each other’s names, which is explained by the fact that their points of view in both cases are most likely exaggerated. Weir claims that in addition to the extremely effective treatment with rest, he connected massage and vitamin replenishment to the damage caused to the patient by anemia. Of particular importance in the context of this work, Weir argues that in the case of hysteria, there is no difference between men and women in treatment (Weir Mitchell, 2014).
Thus, according to Weir Mitchell, the rest cure is suitable without distinguishing between the sexes. The problem with this statement is that Weir Mitchell does not distinguish between activities and how they can affect the characteristics of the psychological state and treatment, respectively. The physicist did not take into account the fact that intellectual activity should be considered when prescribing treatment.
He developed a rest cure in the process of field practice during the war when the soldiers needed complete rest, after which they could go to fight again (Weir Mitchell, 2014). This type of activity is physical, non-intellectual, and not associated with higher nervous activity. Intellectual exhaustion and nervous excitability, in turn, may affect people who are engaged in philosophy or writing, in which case complete rest may be tantamount to intellectual slavery. Weir conducted his practice in an era in which the principles of psychoanalysis were just emerging. Hence, he did not realize the importance of the ego and how it is not necessarily tied to generalized male and female stereotypes.
Other works demonstrate how much the psychiatric norms of the late 19th century differ from those of the 21st century. John Harvey Kellogg (2014) provides valuable insights and innovation for his time, which he applies to explain female hysteria. Despite many stereotypes about women in this work, Kellogg describes the impact of trauma on the child in the formation of neurosis, which is valuable for this study. However, by modern standards, it would certainly seem sexist to say that it is women who are prone to depression and mania.
The treatment proposed by Kellogg is also controversial because it implies complete deprivation of impressions as the only way of therapy. In many ways, feminist criticism would not accept these ideas as limiting human freedom and continuing the principles of patriarchy. Such scientific theories partly consolidate the patriarchal model in psychiatry, which began to erode with changes in the culture of the sexes.
Personality Disorders and Their Connection to Sex and Culture
In the past, nervous system disorders affected women more than men, and this pattern is changing in the 21st century. Personality disorders such as anxiety and depression caused compensatory behaviors such as bulimia or anorexia, specifically in women, as much attention was focused on the aesthetic aspect of female identity in the 20th century (Ernst et al. 3). Many feminist theorists explain the history of human culture as a product of patriarchy, that is, the principle that the male sex is strong and dominant and the female is subordinate to it. According to the principle of patriarchal relations, a man should be a person of action, while a woman’s position is subordinate to his, helping to accomplish feats.
The beauty of a woman is thus a motivating principle for a man, and a woman should not strive for self-realization through her own desires but be realized for a man. Dissociative identity disorders are associated with the loss of a sense of one’s own individuality, which, in turn, can lead to compensatory behaviors (Ernst et al. 3). This is how eating disorders are manifested, in which a woman overeats or starves, trying to match the model of herself idealized in patriarchal optics. However, the expansion of identity politics, in which everyone is free to conform to the inner self-image, has changed the classical notion of such disorders as purely feminine diseases.
Men’s Eating Disorders and the Concept of Masculine
Despite the fact that women are still statistically most susceptible to eating disorders, there are more and more men in this spectrum of disorders, especially those prone to overeating. These neuroses are associated with a changed picture of personality in the 21st century. In the paradigm of modern Western culture, gender norms are being challenged and called into question precisely because of the oppressiveness of the patriarchal model in relation to minorities and the female sex.
The downplaying of patriarchy at the expense of feminist theorists, one of the earliest among whom was Charlotte Perkins Gilman, had an important impact. However, in this way, diseases associated with the perception of oneself were not completely eradicated but began to affect men to a greater extent (Bardone‐Cone et al., 1370). This is due to the fact that the principle of external beauty and the ideal body image is extremely and painfully important for modern men suffering from personality disorders.
Men’s eating disorders are also often associated with men’s sports activity and are the result of excessive cultivation of their own image that causes associative personality disorders (Richardson & Paslakis, 245). Despite the growth of such diseases among men, they are statistically less pronounced than in women, which, however, can be explained by the concealment of a large number of cases from doctors (Bachner-Melman et al. 10). In sports and athletics, a masculine and strong image of a man is fixed. Therefore, there is a serious stigma associated with diseases that are still characterized as purely feminine. Many men tend to hide these disorders associated with appearance, which does not negate their growth in modern psychological practice.
Men are largely victims of the residual and almost inescapable consequences of patriarchal culture since the awareness of these diseases is associated with shame. Compulsive behaviors and neuroses, which are increasingly observed among men, however, are the result of the departure of psychiatry, psychology, and social thought in general from a binary model of behavior in which gender determines the characteristics of consciousness (Ernst et al. 1). In today’s reality, male masculinity is a concept undergoing transformation; many men identify as non-binary.
Conclusion
In connection with this, a significant psychological transformation is taking place, as a result of which it becomes more natural to register such disorders among men. The psychological structure in which the ego plays a central role is characteristic of all people, so the gender distinction in this kind of disease is becoming less and less relevant. Hysteria as a purely female disease and the corresponding restrictive treatments are the result of the patriarchy of early psychology, against which Gilman opposed. Treatment, like a nervous breakdown, is not a matter of gender but of the individuality of the man or woman. From this, one can conclude that the increase in dissociative and nutritional diseases among men is associated with the post-foam decrease in the distinction between the psyche of men and women in the culture of the 21st century.
Works Cited
Bachner-Melman, Rachel, et al. “Associations of Self-Repression with Disordered Eating and Symptoms of Other Psychopathologies for Men and Women.” Journal of Eating Disorders, vol. 10, no. 41, 2022, pp. 1-12.
Bardone‐Cone, Anna M., et al. “Eating Disorder Recovery in Men: A Pilot Study.” International Journal of Eating Disorders, vol. 52, no. 12, 2019, pp. 1370-1379.
Ernst, Mareike, et al. “Gender-Dependent Associations of Anxiety and Depression Symptoms with Eating Disorder Psychopathology in a Representative Population Sample.” Frontiers in Psychiatry, vol. 12. 2021, pp. 1-10.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Arguing About Literature: A Guide and Reader, edited by John Schilb and John Clifford, Bedford, 2014.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper”. Arguing About Literature: A Guide and Reader, edited by John Schilb and John Clifford, Bedford, 2014.
Kellogg, John Harvey. “The Ladies’ Guide in Health and Disease.” Arguing About Literature: A Guide and Reader, edited by John Schilb and John Clifford, Bedford, 2014.
Richardson, Candice, and Georgios Paslakis. “Men’s Experiences of Eating Disorder Treatment: A Qualitative Systematic Review of Men‐Only Studies.” Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, vol. 28, no. 2, 2021, pp. 237-250.
Weir Mitchell, S. “The Evolution of the Rest Treatment.” Arguing About Literature: A Guide and Reader, edited by John Schilb and John Clifford, Bedford, 2014.