called hysterical, that is, a case in which "the body spoke what the voice could not"? Such an interpretation of her actions would seem extravagant but fascinating. One could argue that, as a woman, as a member of that oppressed gender, as a member of the oppressed and scorned working class, and as a child of a dysfunctional family at best, Jean could be seen as a being whose lifelong abuse at the hands of those in power--mostly men--could be termed traumatic. Is not the pattern of male power leading girls to surrender their identity akin to the "seduction" Freud saw as the root of hysteria?
Foucault, in his critique of a patriarchal society which tries at every turn to oppress women through the labeling of their sexual expression as disease, writes of the
hysterization of women's bodies [as a] process whereby the feminine body was analyzed--qualified and disqualified--as being thoroughly saturated with sexuality; whereby it was integrated into the sphere of medical practices, by reason of a pathology intrinsic to it (Fouc
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