women?feminism?

[Katha Pollitt]

In line with the daycare satanic abuse and feminism thread, I recommend
Jona Acocella's new book 'Creating hysteria:women and Multiple
Personality Disorder.' Some of you might have read the section that
appeared in the new Yorker, about how "sybil," whose case history
started the fad for MPD diagnosis, wasn't really a multiple. I think
Acocella does a brilliant job of unpacking the many meanings of the MPD
craze -- like Satanic ritual abuse it has feminist aspects, Christian
fundamentalist aspects, nutty-psychiatry aspects, class aspects--also
medical insurance aspects (MPDs were hospitalized in special units and
used to generate huge insurance claims -- when the insurance dried up,
they were released).. She sees MPD as a misogynist diagnosis (not that
women can't be misogynous, it's a fact that the top shrinks in the field
are all men) that once again told women that their problems lay deep in
the inner self, not in their actual circumstances (invariably grim for
this kind of patient --  working class women with tons of problems,
including mental and emotional ones).

   It's a really good book. And Acocella is a feminist.  maybe Alex will
write a column accusing her of not having written her book twelve years
ago!

   Katha Pollitt