
During the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, women entered a rough stage in history. Dating back when the country first took off and started forming the United States that citizens know today, women had become the centerpiece of life at home. Society dictated these responsibilities for women; they were stuck in their homes while men were out in the world contributing to society’s advancements. However, women still had many responsibilities at home where many of them could not handle such a stressful transition into motherhood. Additionally, the medical field was steadily advancing where doctors who took pride in their work were in charge of the arising asylums across the country. 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 to argue that gender roles, doctor’s misinterpretations of the elusive nature of hysteria, and doctor’s stubbornness contributed to the placement and subjugation of patients in asylums.

In the previously mentioned transitional age, gender roles were defining women in society. Young girls were able to live a carefree 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. Girls were now becoming women and being forced to accustom to the culture of the 19th century. According to Smith-Rosenberg, the period in which an adolescent hits puberty brings many physical and psychological changes as well.  Smith-Rosenberg also states “Her [the mother] sphere was the hearth and the nursery; within it she was supposed to bestow care and love, peace and joy” (656). This explains that nineteenth-century women assumed the roles of the private sphere that consisted of household duties. These duties included cleaning, providing food, babysitting, preparing medicine, and even taking over the role of the household nurse. On top of that, women were expected to be the emotional support 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. As a result, women suffered from anxiety and stress-induced behaviors that many of the women exhibited similar to Nellie Bly’s asylum. For example, Nellie Bly had been eavesdropping on a conversation with a doctor and a patient Tillie Maynard. Bly states, “[Tillie Maynard] told of her recent illness, that she was suffering from nervous debility” (282). This shows that women who complained of simple nervousness were even placed into the asylums. Women who then suffered from the hardships of motherhood and petty illnesses contributed to their placement in asylums.

Hysteria was elusive in nature and many symptoms attached themselves to the definition of the ailment. The ailment could not easily be predictable or diagnosable. “…[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). Hysteria did not only show by these physical symptoms, but hysteria also presented itself in a person’s character, given their personality or mood at the time of diagnosis (Smith-Rosenberg 662). There was a broad spectrum where hysteria lied because there were no telltale signs of the ailment. However, along with loose interpretations by medical professionals, many people who might or might not be crazy became subject to the ailment. The many patients who were admitted into psychological institutions could have been crazy and show some sort of deficiency. A woman for example in Nellie Bly’s asylum who was “on the rope” had a “horrifying look of absolute insanity stamped on her” (Bly 292). Women like the one Nellie Bly saw that day had distinct behavioral tendencies that were different than other women who should have not gone to the asylum in the first place. Some women who would plead to doctors about their sanity were in fact sane. 

Previously mentioned alreadly, doctors in the past had a hard time interpreting hysteria in which women sometimes exhibited symptoms. 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 Bly were mistreated because of this assumption. The patients were under the impression that they had hysteria and must be restrained, so more than often they could not make their cases for sanity. Doctors thought, given their expertise in the field and the symptoms of hysteria that women seemed to express, most of these patients needed help. They had strict conditions in the asylums because they needed to maintain order; however, doctors, who thought that their patients were hysterics, subjugated sane patients.

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. Asylums led by doctors who had absolute authority were created to combat the recent cases of otherwise socially incapable people that may need help. The heads of said asylums were mostly male-dominated. As proven in Nellie Bly’s case, she had met the assistant superintendent Dr. Ingram. During this conversation, Bly pleaded to Dr. Ingram that it was still cold in the asylum and as a result, “he called Miss Grady to the office and ordered more clothing given to the patients” (Bly 295). Male doctors, by this example, show that they have a strong influence over what goes on in the asylums. 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 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 clearly performed beyond their medical boundaries and dictated their patients’ living conditions inside the asylum. Therefore, doctors had too much authority.  Doctors however claiming their expertise in the field thought it was within their rights to perform such operations. 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 admitted needed help and were some way crazy. They were strict with their rules because they believed this was the best way possible to remedy their ailments.

The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflict in 19th Century America and Hysteria compare to Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House and argue that gender roles, doctor’s misinterpretations of the elusive nature of hysteria and their stubbornness contributed to the placement and subjugation of patients 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. However, the automatic judgements towards insane individuals and the labels placed on them still exist in human nature. Society is constantly making headway towards a better understanding of the human behavior, but being able to cope with this aspect about the subject is still trying to be conquered. Women are still seeking equal opportunity out in the public world and proving to be much different from 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.
