Social History of Medicine Advance Access originally published online on July 7, 2007
Social History of Medicine 2007 20(2):333-350; doi:10.1093/shm/hkm035
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Gendered Dis/ability: Perspectives from the Treatment of Psychiatric Casualties in Russia's Early Twentieth-Century Wars
* Department of History, Eastern Washington University, 200 Patterson Hall, Cheney, WA 99004, USA. E-mail: lphillips{at}ewu.edu
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Abstract |
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The historiography on disability and gender in the West suggests an association between ‘masculine’ ability and ‘feminine’ disability. In contrast, Russia's early twentieth-century literature on the treatment of mentally-ill soldiers reveals a broader range of choices in ascriptions of gender and dis/ability. While conceptions of ‘masculine’ ability and ‘feminine’ disability existed in Russia, these two permutations of gender and dis/ability were neither strictly opposed in professional medical literature, nor were they the only available options. Physicians and patients most intimately associated with psychiatric casualties in Russia's wars also considered certain individuals to be masculine and disabled, as well as feminine and able. This article discusses and interprets these issues and concludes by exploring some of the possible political and cultural reasons why understandings of gender and disability proved more flexible in Russia than in the West.
Keywords: disability; gender; masculinity; mental illness; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; psychiatry; Russia; Russo-Japanese War; shell shock; First World War