The research for this play, the sequel to “The Victorian Ladies’ Detective Collective,” is involved and dense. It’s also shocking, and quite moving.
The topic of women locked up as “insane” when they weren’t is part of a very long and intersectional history of women being treated terribly by the medical profession, women of color worst of all. Horrendous medical experimentation on oppressed and marginalized people, perhaps especially women, has been documented through the ages. Dissidents, and those labeled “deviant” got labeled mentally ill and locked up in numerous societies. Add to this injustice, the genuinely mentally ill who end up murdered or in jail.
I have decided my asylum doctor will be Viennese instead of German. I believe the sight of a German-accented doctor diagnosing a biracial woman as “mad” conjures up Nazi Germany vs. Victorian England. As my wasbund David points out, Viennese is probably more accurate. If need be, I’ll make him British.
I’m trying to contain the thematic elements to women being labeled “mad” for simply being “too much;” for being loud, large of appetite, or for being inconvenient for their husbands. This was the case in Victorian times. The label of “crazy bitch” is applied to women today for similar reasons. The cries to “Lock her up!” continue.