Until recent years, women were not “allowed” to receive intimate pleasure. If a woman did have the privilege of experiencing such enjoyment, she was thought to be going through fits or bouts of insanity because women weren’t supposed to enjoy pleasure. So, the origin of “hysteria” meant those “fits of pleasure” but in a negative connotation. Women even received medical surgeries to “cure” them of such antics. Later, people who were considered to be mentally unstable were thought to be “hysterics;” all originating from the same ideology.
Today, the restraints on women have been somewhat loosened, but women of color are still at the bottom of the totem poll in regards to society concerns — specifically black women. If women hundreds of years ago were considered to be hysterics and crazy just over simple enjoyments of life, then what does the popular mass consider black women who never receive justice or fair consideration in social, professional, or unethical environments? We can redefine their and our ideology of women, and, especially, black women.
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Brooke Leigh Howard 