The “Mad Woman” Trope — from Salem to Politics
Written by Emma R. Ellingwood (she/her)
Taylor Swift’s new song “Mad Woman” reflects upon a sexist trope which has followed women from medieval witch trials, to the feminist movement, and into contemporary politics.
If you are a woman, chances are that you have your own experience with being labeled “crazy,” “hysterical,” or perhaps “over-dramatic.” While this trope was once linked to having a uterus, it has morphed into an idea which permeates our modern-day society: from sports, to politics, and in our everyday lives.
Like so many issues related to language in media and pop-culture, the trope of the mad or crazy woman is a double-standard. Similarly to how women are called “bossy” while men are called “leaders,” women are called “emotional” or “crazy” while men are called “passionate” or “bold.”
While this language is indeed sexist, it is also ableist. Although this article focuses more on the misogynistic history behind women’s supposed “hysteria,” it is also a loaded term in relation to mental illness. It is never okay to call a person crazy or hysterical. However, as I will explain, these terms have inherited a sinister history of misogyny. In fact, hysteria was once a diagnosable condition for women.
The development of the “hysterical woman”
The language of hysteria in relation to women comes from Ancient Greece. In fact, the word hysteria comes from the Greek root word hystera, meaning uterus. In Ancient Greece, up until the development of modern medicine, the common belief was that “hysteria” and its symptoms were related to a defect in the uterus. Thus, given the binary Ancient Greek conceptions of gender identity in relation to one’s sex, hysteria was forever linked with womanhood. Today, it is an idea which impacts all women: cisgender and transgender alike.
Helen King, author of Hysteria Beyond Freud, writes extensively about the way in which these antiquated beliefs of the uterus led to generalizations about women’s behaviour. A supposed illness of the uterus referred to as hysterike pnix was believed to be the culprit behind the unwanted behaviour of cis-women.
Thus, King argues that the usage of the word “hysteria” or “hysterical” developed into a term used in reference to any woman who does not conform to the societal expectations of womanhood. Due to the origins of the word, and its usage throughout history, hysteria continues to have the same connotations of being diseased, troubled, and psychologically unwell.
Salem witches and mass hysteria
The correlation between calling a contemporary woman “hysterical” or “crazy” and the Salem witch trials may not seem clear upon immediate thought. However, the ideas of hysteria and the burning of women accused of witchcraft are highly linked in history.
According to the Puritanical fear of the unknown in 1690s Massachusetts, those who did not fit into the society’s accepted roles were subjugated to wild accusations, interrogations, and burning at the stake in the most extreme cases. The majority of those impacted by the witch trials were women who did not fit into the Puritan’s view of what the ideal woman looked like. Older women, enslaved Indigenous woman, and women who were rumoured to have had premarital sex, are some examples of the “types” of women who were accused and tried as witches.
The Salem witch trials are one example of an event viewed as one of mass hysteria. Given what we know about the lingering history of the word hysteria in its relation to womanhood, the fact that witch trials have been blamed on hysteria should not be surprising. These trials were times when women who did not fit into their expected role in society were scapegoated and punished.
Two young girls — Betty Parris and Abigail Williams — are sometimes blamed for inciting the mass hysteria, because they were the ones to accuse a first woman of witchcraft. It is striking that a series of criminal trials deeply tied to Puritanical beliefs about women, witchcraft, and conformity can be blamed on two young girls, rather than on the society at large. This shows how the stereotype of the hysterical woman has permeated our history.
The Victorian “new women”
During the 19th century, powerful and bold women were sometimes called “witch” as a derogatory term — something which continues to happen in our contemporary world — linking them to the violent accusations of witchcraft in the past. On this matter, suffragette Matilda Joslyn Gage, said that the persecution of witches was deeply tied to the history of women. As Madeline Miller writes for The Guardian: “their histories . . . run hand in hand.”
As women began to demand equality during the latter half of the 20th century, once again, their sanity was called into question, just as the sanity of the women accused of witchcraft had been. This era saw the depiction of the “New Woman”: an independent, free, educated woman who threatened the conventional Western ideals of what a woman ought to be. In our contemporary era, the New Woman trope is held up as a feminist icon by some; however at the time, she was shrouded in controversy, and viewed as crazy and brash.
Elaine Showalter, an American academic and one of the founders of feminist literary criticism, says in a 2017 New York Times article that the politicization of the term “hysterical” finds its origins around 1890, as the suffrage movement began to rise.
At this time of political action by women in much of Europe and North America, their push for legal gender equality and the right to vote was viewed by many men as an attempt at overthrowing the political establishment and status quo. To many men, the New Woman and suffragettes were a threat to their power and dominance in society. Thus, in an attempt to silence the increasingly political voices of women, their opinions were pinned down as “hysteria” and their ideas as “crazy.”
Where we stand today
A quick Google search can show you that powerful women in various occupations and walks of life are still called “crazy” or hysterical.” From Serena Williams, to Hilary Clinton, to Kamala Harris, powerful women are still referred to using this outdated, misogynistic language.
For Black women, not only are they subject to misogyny, but they are also subject to racist stereotypes in the media, such as that of the “angry Black woman.” Similarly, women of colour, LGBTQ+ and transgender women are faced with their own intersectional experiences of womanhood, which make them targets for more stigmatized language than white, cisgender, heterosexual women.
Since Ancient Greece, womanhood has been linked to what has been perceived as a lack of sanity. These beliefs led to women being burned at the stake for not conforming to patriarchal values; for women in the 1890s, their wish for the same rights as men was viewed as part of women’s hysterical nature; and it was not until the 1950s that hysteria was no longer considered a mental illness.
Today, women and feminists are referred to as crazy because we wish for equal treatment in society, or overdramatic because we are passionate and outspoken about our opinions. Women in politics are particular targets of these sexist statements.
Powerful women throughout history, for thousands of years, have been viewed as hysterical, over-emotional, dramatic, and crazy. As Taylor Swift says best in “Mad Woman”: “every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy, what about that? And when you say I seem angry, I get more angry.”
