Women of the Asylum

Right now I am reading the book "Women of the Asylum" by. Jeffrey L. Geller and Maxine Harris. This is a required book for the wintermester course I am taking. Although we don't have to read the whole book, I have already read about half of the way through it (and I just bought it on Tuesday!), as have a number of my classmates. It is an intriguing read. If you liked Susanna Kaysen's "Girl, Interrupted," or other such stories of women and mental illness (or supposed "mental illness"), you might enjoy this book.

The book presents the first-hand accounts of 26 women who were incarcerated at some point during the years 1840 to 1945 in what were once termed "insane asylums". Some of the women were behind asylum walls for a year, while others were incarcerated for more than twenty years. Whether or not each of these women were truly "insane" is for the reader to decide.

Many of the women were put behind asylum walls for simply disobeying their husbands, for expressing unpopular religious beliefs, for spending too much money, and many other questionable, and often unreasonable, circumstances. A lot of the women were incarcerated for not adhering to the societal norms of the feminine role and the book seems to do a good job of telling this aspect. Furthermore, a vast majority of the women, once claimed to be "insane" by someone (a husband, a parent, a doctor) were never allowed the time of day to explain themselves, their thoughts or their actions, and rarely, if ever, was the mental health of the accusers looked into.

One woman inmate mentioned a sign that hung above the asylum entrance that read "Who enters here must leave all hope behind." The majority of women in the book speak of the many horrors of the asylums such as being chained to the floor in shackles, hearded up like sheep, nibbled on by rats, slapped and cursed at by nurses, degraded, dehumanized, and all the time having seemingly nobody as their advocates.

Some women in the book talk about how the asylums broke them in the end. Broke their spirits. Broke whatever true bit of sanity they had possessed. These women would spend a long time simply trying to recover from their experiences surrounding asylum life.

There's a lot more to say about this book but I will refrain from saying it all here. If the chance arises, read this book! History, like this, is so very important to stay in touch with. In the end, the accounts of the women in this book serve to remind me of how far society has come from those days. We still have our troubles, as all societies do, to work on -- but nothing like the mentally ill experienced back in the days. After reading this book, one might want to ask themselves, "If I were around back in those days, might I have been incarcerated in the asylums?" You might be surprised at your answer.