Gender and madness in nineteenth-century Britain

Abstract

For decades, the history of gender and madness was a story about women. Individuals deemed lunatics were universally treated as passive victims of medio-legal forces beyond their control. New generations of scholars have looked beyond power binaries to interrogate the complex network of gender, class, family, and culture to place ‘the mad’ as historical actors in a complex and often contradictory story. This article reflects on some major themes in the British historiography of Victorian gender and madness since the mid-20th century. It highlights how feminist and anti-psychiatrist interdisciplinary works inspired new generations of historians to place gender at the forefront of studies of medical discourse about madness, lunatic asylums, and the experiences of those deemed insane. Recent literature on the history of gender and madness places itself as key to not only the history of medicine, but the history of Victorian Britain in general.