I’ve created a dramaturgy site for my play, “Escape from the Asylum,” with research resources.
The concept behind the play is that unconventional women are still dismissed as “crazy” and “hysterical” in present day, just as they were in Victorian times. While we are no longer burned at the stake or beheaded, a woman’s pushing boundaries is an invitation to be labeled “irrational.” It is a way of silencing women and keeping them in their place. Just like then, we have limited autonomy over our own bodies, and are victims of a medical establishment that, again, disbelieves us.
“By 1859, physicians were claiming that a quarter of all women suffered from hysteria — as defined by a 75-page list of possible manifestations. Women demanding equality was a pesky problem, and hysteria was a brilliant answer. Hysteria asked, ‘Don’t those high-maintenance females see they’re too irrational to do things like own property, control finances, get a college degree, or cast a vote?’ It framed female emotional instability as biological ‘fact.’”