ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the psychiatric constructions of gender-conforming women and femininity through a range of long-standing and influential diagnoses, as well as feminist critiques. Prior to psychiatric conceptualizations of women, religious discourse was predominant in describing and intervening in occurrences of 'deviance'. Witchcraft, and the healing therapies that drew on women's long history as healers and midwives, were made illegal in the English Witchcraft Act in 1542. The term 'hysteria' was derived from 'hysteron', a Greek word meaning 'womb'. Despite the influence of psychoanalysis, its reconceptualization of hysteria was initially met with hostility and derision due to the promotion of a method that emphasized listening to women, rather than social confinement through bed-rest. A common thread throughout early psychiatric literature was the association between femininity and masochism, with masochism representing a pathological form of feminine love. As a result, femininity is pathologized and only gender-conforming masculinity is positioned as the 'norm'.
