A first female president of the United States? That would be nice, but we’re starting from a long way off. Many people are still wondering about peccadilloes, such as, among other examples, whether Kamala Harris’ laughter could harm her. Because a woman who laughs is necessarily suspect. She’s possibly an agitated madwoman, a “nutcase”, as the other one said, a madwoman, another hysteric of her kind who must be contained as quickly as possible and at all costs. Tie her up, someone!
In the history of medicine, moreover, all sorts of unusual instruments and techniques have been used, over the centuries, to “treat” these crazy girls, to control these lunatics, these mentally ill people; from chains to straitjackets, through isolation in a dungeon, electrotherapy, the use of magnets, etc. – the aim being obviously to contain these disturbing women. All “sick”.
A man who laughs, it goes without saying, is a good guy. Friendly, jovial, remarkable, he’s a bon vivant, that one. What a nice man, all the same! Capable of humor, of a fine mind, of lively and creative intelligence, in addition to being extremely competent from the outset, he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Wonderful.
But the laughing woman, she, clearly overflows the line. She goes beyond this fine limit that patriarchal society has drawn for her, a small space where she should remain, confined. By going beyond, this woman clearly finds herself on the margins – a marginal being by default and definition “outside the norm”, and therefore abnormal.
And what about that fat, crazy laugh, mouth wide open, a cry of the body as of the belly, all that has absolutely nothing feminine about it. It is not a simple laugh, it is a revolt, a sonorous manifestation of the female body. Hide this woman who laughs too loudly. Better yet, make her shut up! She is not well, this woman.
From the outset, female laughter is wrongly associated with a sign of immaturity, incompetence, superficiality, and sometimes with a mental disorder. This is audible symptomatic proof of a profound internal imbalance, a sign of psychic, psychological instability. In short, this woman is a psychiatric case. A woman who laughs is not serious. How incompetent, all the same! How childish! “Please stop laughing. This is serious!” a pot-bellied gentleman with an overflowing ego would say.
Containing women… down to their organs
Indeed, to laugh properly, a balanced, civilized, even domesticated woman should place a delicate hand in front of this horribly open mouth, while chuckling discreetly, silently. A thin, contained laugh. Containing women, that’s the goal. Containing women’s bodies, their limbs, their voices, their hair, their organs. Since the dawn of time, controlling women has undoubtedly involved restraining their bodies, their gestures, movements, and displacements.
In fact, even “ovarian restraint” did indeed exist in the history of medicine to “control” women. This so-called “treatment” was essentially used to control convulsive and hysterical women, to suppress their cries, their anger, their revolt, to put an end to unwanted “nervous” agitations, to these typically feminine disorders, as well as to prevent an imminent “hysterical crisis”, hysteria obviously implying a “moving” uterus.
To do this, heavy stones were used, among other things, or people (often nursing staff) were placed or sat on a board, which covered the abdomen of the “sick” woman. Yes, ma’am. We held her firmly, that one.
In this regard, the famous French physician and neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), a great specialist in nervous diseases, who revived the concept of hysteria at the end of the 19th century,e century, wrote, in Hysteria (Privat, 1971): “Compression of the ovary (sic) is a preventive means, a means also of having peace: it is not at all a means of healing.”
And “having peace,” in fact, ensures the status quo, the patriarchal order — medical, political, social, or other — of things. Leave men alone, ask for nothing, do not disturb, or make noise so that these gentlemen run the world as they see fit. To do this, what better than to control women, to silence them, to silence them, to extinguish their voices, to ridicule their laughter, to crush all these women who demand change? To contain their bodies, to control their uteruses, to cover their heads, to hide this feminine hair that would attract, in spite of themselves, the lustful gaze of men, to erase women from the public space, to keep them away from political power.
Over and over again, women who cause trouble are labeled “disturbed.” And we still persist today in silencing women, if not to a mental illness. Lock her up, someone. Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! »
We are still a long way from the famous glass ceiling, I tell you.