THE HYSTERICAL ISSUE IF YOU DON’T LAUGH, YOU’LL CRY
BEFORE SOLVE
WE THE
PROCEED, FOLLOWING
TRY
TO RIDDLE.
(FOR THOSE WHO ARE UNABLE TO, THE ANSWER CAN BE FOUND NEAR THE END)
A FAT H E R A N D S O N A R E IN A HORRIBLE CAR C R A S H T H AT K I L L S T H E DAD. THE SON IS RUSHED T O T H E H O S P I TA L ; J U S T AS HE’S ABOUT TO GO UNDER THE KNIFE, THE SURGEON S AY S , “I CAN’T O P E R AT E — T H AT B O Y I S M Y S O N ! ” HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
To the Modern Ophelia, medication with opioids, and ithin the Hysterical more antidepressants and got Issue, we dive into more mental health referrals. the trope of the preThus, often psychologizing a Raphaelite hysterical woman women’s pain rather than taking and its occurrence within it at face value. The study the socio-cultural zeitgeist concluded that symptoms in of the present day. This women-dominated conditions visual publication explores that do not fit the masculine how gender bias, however norm seem to be invisible. unconscious, still culminates into medical misogyny, which Thus, through the medium of continues to implicate the conceptual fashion imagery, treatment of women globally. Bias Cut culminates as an ode A 2018 study entitled “Brave to the modern Ophelia, where Men” and “Emotional Women” the experiences of the unwell investigated Gender Bias in women are both seen and Health Care and Gendered Norms heard. towards Patients with Chronic Pain (Samulowitz, 2018). Their results - Alice Pearson showed that women, compared
W
to men, received less and less effective pain relief, less pain
Are like
you
hysterical Janet?
How to know if you’re a modern Ophelia: Have you ever been made to feel that you’re hysterical, e m o t i o n a l , complaining, or not wanting to get better? A malingerer? Or simply fabricating the pain as if it is all in your head??
“ W O M E N A R E B O R N W I T H PA I N B U I LT I N , I T ’ S O U R
P H Y S I C A L D E S T I N Y: P E R I O D PA I N S , S O R E B O O B S , CHILDBIRTH,
YOU
K N O W.
WE
CARRY
IT
WITHIN
O U R S E LV E S T H R O U G H O U T O U R L I V E S , M E N D O N ’ T. THEY
HAVE
THEY
CAN
TO
SEEK
IT
O U T,
THEY
INVENT
ALL
THESE GODS AND DEMONS AND THINGS JUST SO FEEL
G U I LT Y
ABOUT
THINGS,
WHICH
IS SOMETHING WE DO VERY WELL ON OUR OWN. AND
THEN
THEY
C R E AT E
WARS
SO
THEY
CAN
FEEL THINGS AND TOUCH EACH OTHER AND WHEN T H E R E A R E N ’ T A N Y W A R S T H E Y C A N P L A Y R U G B Y. WE WE
HAVE
IT
HAVE
YEARS FEEL
W H AT
ALL
GOING
ON
YEARS
AND
THEN
PA I N
AND
YOU
ARE
HAPPENS?
F***ING
ON
A
CYCLE
MAKING THE
M E N O PA U S E
IN
HERE
FOR
JUST
PEACE
COMES,
YEARS
WHEN
WITH
M E N O PA U S E
AND
INSIDE,
YOU
IT
ALL,
IS
THE
COMES, IT
AND
THE
MOST WONDERFUL F***ING THING IN THE WORLD. A N D Y E S , Y O U R E N T I R E P E LV I C F L O O R C R U M B L E S
AND YOU GET F***ING HOT AND NO ONE CARES, BUT THEN YOU’RE FREE, NO LONGER A SLAVE, NO LONGER A M A C H I N E W I T H PA R T S . Y O U ’ R E J U S T A P E R S O N . ”
- FLEABAG, 2019
INVISIBLE
WOMAN
CHRONIC Outside this body is perfectly formed, flesh smooth, cheeks plump hair glossy. Outside it is easy and makes sense, only minor irritations bloom beneath the skin sometimes. But. Inside, you get up, you paint the same door in the same brown paint, over and over again. You shove fistfuls of the same music into your ears; over and over again. You smash your face into a pillow and hope the pressure permanently numbs you: over and over again. Everything changes when your body is a broken city, whose lights go on and off intermittently; and you must assign the damage a numerical value rate your pain from zero to ten, the doctor says, contracted in to fix these rusting pipes and sagging walls. How can you weigh the way pain generates a low buzz in your ears when someone important speaks to you? And you nod vacantly to appear normal but inside you are twisting and turning to feed this monster that hangs around your neck. What number do you assign to that? You suggest five and the contractors suggest, yoga. When your body is an abandoned fortress, when outside it looks so fresh, so ready for a fight, with creepers pushing through the inlaid brick but the wood of the stairs is quickly rotting, and you have neatly folded up inside yourself, now that the pain makes you quiet, makes you speak in half-words, makes you a bizarre and hunched up thing, squirming whilst your limbs stay still, and the world walks by you and waits for you to package up your discomfort in a small and digestible thumbs up. What number is that? You suggest seven and the contractors suggest stress reduction. When your body is a badly planned suburb whose roads run into each other and every left turn is a dead end, when you wake up at 4am with sweat cradling you, mockingly, and
sourness rising in your throat, when you lie awake breathing pockets of stale air, unwilling to wake your clueless partner. You lie there, you lie there, hearing the pain flow through your body and wondering what will break you this time, will it be the moment halfway down the rotting stairs? Where you suddenly fall apart and clutch the banister to save yourself from falling, no words left to explain. Will it be the moment you sway after no one offers you a seat on the train? And the words come out suspiciously smashed together. Will it be the way you zip up the jacket of a slow burning ache? Slap on a smile and tell your worried lover you’re fine. Will it be the crack of your face as you hit the hospital floor and they rush at you with needles as your dad yells your name? What kind of ranks can you bestow upon that? You suggest that it is a ten. A ten, the contractors say, a little irritated, at a ten, you would be writhing on the ground and screaming. But you are writhing, and you are screaming. It’s just that the pain has learnt to speak with an inside voice after too many years of dialling down and scaling back But, they insist, and you believe them, that you wouldn’t be able to bear it. You bear it. Reduce it to a nine. The contractors suggest, paracetamol.
- Monika Radojevic teeth in the back of my neck (2021)
NIA
I WAS TOLD IT WAS JUST A LINGERING HANGOVER. I COULDN’T HELP BUT FEEL HE DISMISSED ME BECAUSE I WAS SO Y O U N G . BUT I KNOW MY BODY AND SOMETHING WASN’T RIGHT.
Nia’s story home to recover. “We had an IIH (idiopathic intracranial ia Phillips, then to travel back on the train. hypertension). “I had been 20-years-old, had And I was literally travelling put down for an MRI scan, just started a new through Reading train station but it was not booked in until semester at Royal Holloway the following morning. My University when she with a sleep mask over my face because I could not bear mum kept on pestering and became ill. What began as any light at all.” kept on asking why I wasn’t a headache became rapidly having it now. I do feel like, worse as Nia suffered from Back at home in South potentially, they just thought a debilitating migraine. “I was Wales, Phillips visited she’s young, and she’ll be vomiting everywhere, I couldn’t her local GP. “The nurse fine. But she persisted to ask see properly, and I could barely practitioner said it was and ask and ask. And finally, lift my head to get out of bed,” potentially an ear infection. they ended up pushing the Phillips recalled. After being So she prescribed me scan forward.” seriously ill for over six days antibiotics because she’d and in excruciating pain, seen the swelling in my ear.” “I think I got the scan at Nia went to the out of hours about 6:00 AM, and they said doctors. However, still concerned by that I had a blood clot on my her daughter’s blurred vision, brain. So we were all just a The doctor told Nia that Nia’s mum contacted the bit in shock, to be honest.” it was just a headache opticians for a third opinion. that was probably from a “We were so lucky that the “The doctor then profusely lingering hangover. She was optician at the time on duty apologised because he’d prescribed co-codamol to was a family friend and said, ‘I should have listened deal with the pain. “I couldn’t managed to fit us in last to you when you told me help but feel he dismissed minute. She noticed the about it. It was a classic case. it a bit because I was so swelling in my brain straight All the symptoms are there.’ young. But I know my body, away when she looked into But he admitted to himself and I told him I’ve suffered my eyes. And you could see that he sort of overlooked it, from headaches before, this sort of panic setting into obviously not on purpose. I do but I’ve never felt this ill. He her.” think that was an unconscious just didn’t seem to take me bias sort of thing,” She added. seriously,” said Phillips. Nia was immediately referred to the hospital to see a “I stayed in the hospital for After no improvement, consultant ophthalmologist, two weeks. I was still, at this Nia’s mum came to her who initially thought she had point, severely light sensitive. university to take her
N
Fig.1 Nia pictured in hospital
We had to put bedsheets over the windows in the hospital. We had to put covers over the mirrors in case any light reflected back to me. My parents went to Sports Direct, and they got one of those giant golf umbrellas. I had these horrendous, actually, they’re kind of back in style now, but you know, those really skinny black glasses. They had a little side panel to stop all light coming in. And so I looked hilarious, I gotta be honest.” A year later, Nia is still dealing with the aftermath. “I still suffer from light sensitivity. I was meant to be in my third year, but I had to defer the year. I struggle with long term
concentration. I find that I can concentrate for about 20 minutes and then zone out.’ One of the toughest parts for Nia to deal with during her recovery was being unable to sing. ‘That really broke my heart because I’ve always loved singing. So I wasn’t able to sing properly because I think that the noise of my own voice was giving myself a headache.” “It wasn’t until I’d had the tests back that they said that all my results were normal and I don’t have any genetic predisposition to clotting,’ Nia added.
“much Because as far as I was aware, pretty everyone in school was on it. Doctors prescribe it; it must be safe.
Despite being a completely healthy 20 year old, Nia suffered a life-threatening stroke likely caused by her contraceptive pill.
PSA to Girls on Rigevidon’, amassed substantial online attention. Hundreds of women commended Nia, and others began sharing similar stories of feeling Phillips was 18 when she was prescribed ignored by the healthcare system the contraceptive pill Rigevidon. Almost 9 when speaking up about the pill. in 10 women who receive contraception from the GP are prescribed the pill. “I wanted to make my post on Facebook Rigevidon is one of the cheapest and because I think it’s important that people widely prescribed pills available on the also know the side effects and know the NHS. However, a Change.org petition risks. I didn’t want to scaremonger at received over 27,000 signatures calling all, but I literally never thought about the for Rigevidon to be banned after an risks of taking the pill. Because as far as alarming number of women claimed I was aware, pretty much everyone in they developed worrying mental and school was on it. Doctors prescribe it; physical side effects. it must be safe.” After her traumatising experience, Nia decided to share her story on social media. The post, entitled ‘A
“It was, to be honest, so so nice to have such a good response from people saying they’re so glad I shared my story.”
“In terms of what needs to change for other women, I think it’s so, so important that young girls and any woman who’s initially put on it, they need to be told that a) there are different options and b) there are side effects.”
encourage us to do our own research, just to sort of make us aware that there are risks and that there are different options as well. I do think there’s such a lack of education, in terms of women’s health in school, because realistically, it’s just health.”
“If anything, I do feel like I was negligent in the fact that I didn’t do enough research. But at 18, I do feel like the onus should also be on the medical professionals, even just to
“I understand that I was in a very low minority. And it was very unlikely for it to happen to me. But it did happen to me.”
MANY CAN’T SEEM TO COMPREHEND HOW ONE LITTLE PILL CAN CAUSE SUCH A REACTION. S O M E M AY S AY W E A R E S I M P LY B E I N G O V E R L Y S E N S I T I V E O R O V E R T H E T O P, B U T W H AT I F I T O L D Y O U T H AT S O M E T I M E S I T S T H E S M A L L E S T T H I N G S T H AT C A N C A U S E Y O U T H E G R E AT E S T D I S C O M F O R T
.
This is normal. You’re just hormonal. You’re just having a bad day. My doctor keeps saying it’s all in my head. Ironically, thats what I’m trying to express. This little pill is making me fucking depressed. Bit of a tough one to swallow, I guess.
RIDDLE THE
SURGEON
IS
ANSWER: THE
BOY’S
MOTHER
ARE
WE
STILL
AN
AFTER THOUG
HT?
“When 50 percent of the population is ‘invisible,’ people do not have a complete picture of what is actually going on in the world.”
dismissed, disbelieved and ignored. And it’s all a result of the data gap combined with the still prevalent belief, in the face of all the evidence that we do have, that men are the default humans. They are not. They “For millennia, medicine has are, to state the obvious, just men. functioned on the assumption that And data collected on them does male bodies can represent humanity not, cannot, and should not, apply as a whole. As a result, we have to women. We need a revolution a huge historical data gap when it in the research and the practice of comes to female bodies, and this is medicine, and we need it yesterday. a data gap that is continuing to grow We need to train doctors to listen to as researchers carry on ignoring the women, and to recognise that their pressing ethical need to include female inability to diagnose a woman may cells, animals and humans, in their not be because she is lying or being research. That this is still going on in the hysterical: the problem may be the twenty-first century is a scandal. It should gender data gaps in their knowledge. be the subject of newspaper headlines It’s time to stop dismissing worldwide. Women are dying, and the medical women, and start saving them.” world is complicit. It needs to wake up.” “The evidence that women are being let down by the medical establishment is overwhelming. The bodies, symptoms and diseases that affect half the world’s population are being
- Caroline Criado-Pérez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
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