190 P -
States of Sanity: Gender, Sexuality, and Psychiatric Power
Saturday, June 3, 2017: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM
SC 143 (Hofstra University)
Chair:
Modupe Labode, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis
Comment:
Regina Kunzel, Princeton University
Session Abstract
Psychiatry existed as a node of social power in the twentieth century, as doctors diagnosed and institutionalized people because of mental illnesses and social deviance. This panel explores the circulation of psychiatric power and the ways that gender and sexuality informed state actions including the classification of people, commitments to state institutions, and the definition of rights and citizenship. Susan Cahn’s paper on Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) examines how BPD became so focused on women in the 1960s and 1970s. Cahn finds that the gendered conception of “The Intractable Female Patient” arose in response to women’s liberationists, redefining female citizenship in medical terms. Jennifer Lambe focuses on the psychiatric incarceration of Cubans who arrived in the Mariel boatlift. A racial and sexualized discourse of fear surrounded the refugees, shaping their classifications not only as mentally ill, but also as criminals. Anne Parsons discusses the book The Snake Pit by Mary Jane Ward, a psychiatric patient in the 1940s, which challenged her male-dominated therapies. Parsons also shows how public discourse twisted Ward's words to suggest that state psychiatry could rehabilitate white, middle-class women into functioning housewives. All three papers grapple with power, marginalization, and resistance in the complicated history of psychiatry. Regina Kunzel, a scholar of sexuality and psychiatry, will comment and Modupe Labode, who is working on a public project on psychiatric patient voices, will chair. The papers will have a 15-minute time limit, with a 5-minute comment to make the session more interactive.
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See more of: Traditional Panel