Phyllis Chesler, Women and Madness.
http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/books/women-and-madness
I read it when it was first published.
Why are so many women in therapy, on psychiatric medication, or in mental hospitals? Who decides these women are mad? Why do therapists have the power to deem a woman mentally ill when she asserts herself sexually, economically, or intellectually? Why are women pathologized, but not treated, when they exhibit a normal human response to abuse and stress - including the lifelong stress of second-class citizenship?
Phyllis Chesler confronts questions like these and persuasively argues that double standards of mental health and illness exist and that women are often punitively labeled as a function of gender, race, class, or sexual preference. Based on in-depth interviews with patients and an analysis of women's roles in myths and history, Women and Madness is an incomparable work.
What is "normal" for a woman is abnormal for a human being.
What is "normal" for a man is abnormal for a woman.
Classic double bind that women are trapped in. If we
are emotional, we are being abnormal human beings, because normal human beings are not emotional. If we are
not emotional, we are abnormal women.
And on your point: if we are not emotional, we must be portrayed as being emotional, so as to be confined to our abnormal human being status, and dismissed.
= new reply since forum marked as read