SOURCE: Tomes, Nancy. Review of The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980, by Elaine Showalter. American Historical Review 92, no. 1 (February 1987): 131-32.
In the following review of The Female Malady, Tomes commends Showalter's provocative cultural analysis, but finds shortcomings in her exaggerated premise and flawed historical interpretation of women's psychiatric treatment.
