During the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, women entered a rough transitional stage in history. Way back when the country first took off and started forming the America citizens know today, women had become the centerpiece of life at home. Society dictated this title for women; they were stuck in their homes while men were out in the world contributing to society’s advancements. However, women still had a lot of responsibilities at home where many of them could not handle such a stressful transition into motherhood. Tagged along with motherhood, the medical field was steadily advancing where new topics were freshly being studied by doctors who took pride in their work. The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflict in 19th Century America and Hysteria relate to Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House and argue that gender roles, the ambiguity of hysteria, and doctor’s stubbornness contributed to the subjugation of patients in asylums.

In the transitional age previously mentioned, girls grew up similar to that of boys. They were able to live a care-free childhood according to the rules of their parents; however, mindsets changed once puberty came around and girls began to take on the hardships of becoming a mother. According to The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflict in 19th Century America, the period in which an adolescent hits puberty brings many physical changes but psychological changes as well. Girls were now becoming women and starting to deviate by being forced to accustom to the culture of the 19th century culture. “Her sphere was the hearth and the nursery; within it she was supposed to bestow care and love, peace and joy” (Smith-Rosenberg 656). Women were expected to take on the private sphere consisting of household duties. Duties included cleaning, providing food, babysitting, preparing medicine, and even taking over the duties of being the household nurse in select parts of the country. On top of all of this, women were expected to be emotional supporters of the family and have a strong integrity and high moral standards (Smith-Rosenberg 657). It meant that the mother normally took on exhausting responsibilities while having to keep a smile on her face. As a result, while women were taking on these new roles early in their lives, they went underwent anxiety and stress-induced behaviors that many of the women exhibited similar to Nellie Bly’s asylum.

Doctors in the past had a hard time interpreting behaviors that women sometimes exhibited. Behaviors in these patients changed often and dramatically, and according to the research conducted, many of the patient’s symptoms led doctors to believe that their patients had hysteria. Research concerning hysteria though was only being newly developed. Nellie Bly’s accounts in Ten Days in a Mad-House exhibit the doctor’s concern about hysteria. For example, even though people now know that Nellie Bly was in fact sane, Nellie was “advised to fight against the imaginations of [her] brain” (Bly 291). Nurses considered every patient insane, and patients like Nellie were thus mistreated because they, being admitted into the asylums, were under the impression that they had hysteria and needed to be restrained. As mentioned before, gender roles that put pressure on women to conform to society that caused anxiety and was normally misinterpreted. Doctors thought, given their expertise in the field and the research on hysteria, they thought most of these patients needed help. They had strict conditions in the asylums because they needed to maintain order; however, patients who were not actually crazy were subjugated by doctors thinking that they actually were hysterics.

Hysteria next was a developing study for medical professionals who sought for more knowledge about the ailment. Again referring to The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflict in 19th Century America, hysteria was elusive in nature. The ailment could not easily be predictable or able to be diagnosed. “…[C]omplaints of nervousness, depression, the tendency to tears and chronic fatigue, or of disabling pain” were many symptoms exhibited in patients with hysteria (Smith-Rosenberg 660). Not only presented by these physical symptoms, hysteria also presents itself in a person’s character, given her personality or mood at the time of diagnosis (Smith-Rosenberg 662). Clearly there is a broad spectrum by which hysteria lies because there are no tell-tale signs of the ailment. However, along with loose interpretations by medical professionals, many people who might or might not be crazy become subject to the ailment. The many patients admitted into psychological institutions much like Nellie Bly could clearly be crazy and show some sort of deficiency, but some women who would plead to doctors about their sanity were truly not insane at all. Hysteria could not truly be defined and many women expressed symptoms that doctors interpreted as hysteria.

Finally, doctors clearly had a rigorous education when it came to learning about their subject. Among learning plentiful information, observing all sorts of procedures and becoming familiar with all different kinds of known ailments, doctors surely took pride in their diagnoses of patients and were stubborn to admit if they were wrong. Doctors back in the day proved to be mostly male-dominated while women saw little opportunity in the field because they were not as readily accepted like men were. They had reputations already in the field, so people became hesitant with the idea of women as doctors. Asylums which had male doctors as heads were built to combat the recent cases of otherwise socially-incapable people that may need help. Doctors then enforced their ideology and medical “expertise” more strictly among the patients to try to help them. According to Hysteria from the British Medical Journal, a woman describes that “medical men” (or doctors) act in a “subsidiary role… with a wish on their part to be more actively involved [that] has led to the subordination of women…” (Hysteria 815). The woman in the article describes how men in the specific medical field are performing certain tests on women without their consent since anesthesia was used on them, rendering them unconscious (Hysteria 815). Comparing it to Nellie Bly’s case, men were clearly performing beyond their medical boundaries and consent. Doctors however claiming their expertise in the field thought it was within their rights to perform such operations. Although, women did not help themselves because they thought since doctors were experts, they were within those rights because doctors knew more about the subject at hand than they did. Doctors took this stance and carried over to the asylums. Patients in Nellie Bly’s asylum did not have much consent either because nurses would not accept patient’s pleas for mercy as convincing evidence for their sanity. Doctors in asylums claim superiority over patients because they assumed all patients being admitted needed help and were in some way crazy. They were strict with their rules because they believed this was the best way possible to remedy their ailments. Doctors surely liked to take pride in their work.

The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflict in 19th Century America and Sexuality, Class and Role in 19th-Century America relate to Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House and argue that gender roles, the elusive nature of hysteria and doctor’s stubbornness contributed to the subjugation of patients by in asylums. Women who carried the burden of motherhood and helping her kids surely went through stress, and much of that stress is still prevalent today. Hysteria surely has been more researched as time has progressed while doctors have taken a less strict approach to their patients. However, the automatic judgements towards hysterics and the labels placed on them still prove existent in human nature. Society is constantly making headway towards a better understanding of the subject, but being able to cope with this aspect about the human personality is still trying to be conquered. And last but surely not least, women are still seeking equal opportunity out in the public world and proving to be much different than generations that preceded them. Women are appearing in places men at a time never thought would be possible. It goes to show how society is constantly changing.
