>
> Of course, I have big problems with understanding how a term like
> "hysteria" could ever be used in a non-clinical sense...
Probably, but nevertheless it is a commonplace of everyday conversation, though mostly as an adjective, "hysterical." If a freshman used any word as sloppily as (according to Frances) Showalter uses hysteria, I would cross it out and put a query in the margin, "What do you mean?" She takes a defunct clinical term, uses it in the derogatory sense it has in everyday life, but implies that it names a real neurological condition. (All mental phenomena are, among other things, neurological conditions: no movement of neurotransmitters, no thought.) The technique was partly admirable, partly objectionable, in Veblen, who would frequently write such sentences as "All X's are father-rapers -- now, understand, I mean nothing personal, it's strictly a disinterested scientific term." Showalter adds a twist by claiming to be a friend to hysterics. I think Kenneth Burke discusses this trope at length in one of his books.
So far no Showalter adherent (including Showalter herself in the Diary in the LRB) has given any very convincing reason why her book should be higher on anyone's reading list than, say, some obscure 17th c. commentary on Calvin's *Institutes*. Life is too short to spend much of it reading obvious nonsense. That's what book reviews are for -- or should be for. The reviewer gets paid for reading nonsense and warning his/her readers against it.
An added note. Back in the days when "hysteria" was used in respectable clinical practice, there was an illness called something like "Glove Hysteria." (I'm not sure of "glove," but it was some such term referring to the hand.) That illness is now known as carpal tunnel, a disease that exists for the most part because of modern work practices. Anyone who works in a CFS unit (computerized forwarding system) in the Post Office will sooner or later develop it. Of course the work of those units could drive anyone mad, but that is another issue. I would presume that the early misdiagnoses of it were, like Newton's concept of force at a distance, or the ether in 19th c. physics, honest though mistaken attempts to make sense of reality. They were theories grounded in practice.
But to continue, at the present, to use "hysteria" in the same paragraph as "illness," no matter what ad hoc definition of the term one offers, is pure charlantry.
Also (though this aggressive vocabulary changes rapidly as the media and the insurance companies generate new euphemisms), this whole category of diseases we are speaking of are characterized as "soft symptom" illnesses -- thus in a WSJ editorial objecting to a court decision in favor of a fired brokerage employee who suffered from depression. The editorial then discussed CSF and in effect argued that all "soft symptom" illnesses should be cast out of the medical and legal worlds. Jim Bunning introduced a bill into the House last year (fortunately dead in committee) that would have required all receiving disability benefits under Social Security for "soft symptom" disabilities to submit new applications each year. (Incidentally, I'm told that Senator-elect Jim Bunning has put forward a proposal favorable to disabled persons, but I don't know any of the details.)
Given the experience of many I know personally (and I'm sure Marta can expand this in detail), Bunning's proposed legislation would destroy the lives of many. A member of our DMDSG here, after numerous catastrophes including the death of her husband, slander in the local press, repeated hospitalizations, and a raid from the IRS, is still holding on by her fingertips to ownership of a house. She *should* be on disability, for the 50 hour week in a dept. store is utterly destructive to her chances of ever getting depression under control, but under the Bunning proposal, if she were to go on disability she would eventually lose her house. Sooner or later, probably <zsooner, some SS counselor would refuse her new application, it would take a minimum of 6 months to win an appeal -- and by that time she would be homeless.
[Roughly speaking, a "soft symptom" is any symptom that an x-ray won't demonstrate unambiguously. Almost any new virus would fit the description.]
Carrol