http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/medshow/femtryher.html
Oh dear oh dear oh dear, where to even begin with this one.
This ad reminds me of a quote on our "age of anxiety" text, quoted by a physician: "Get the the female tranquilized and get her out of here!"
The thing that gets me about this ad is the way the hypothetical patient is treated. "Try her on Stelazine". It treats the drug as if it were meant to make the therapists life easier, rather than actually help with whatever issue the client may be facing.
Also, this ad rather nicely ties in with the idea of women being trapped in situations where they are "supposed" to feel comfortable. "Excessive use of the telephone is often symptomatic of chronic neurotic anxiety". I'm sorry, what? This ad plays upon the tendency to demonize malcontent women. Imagine someone who must spend almost all her time in the house, the phone being her only reliable contact with the outside world. I think we're making a bit of a correlation/causation error here. Maybe if she wasn't stuck in a world where the phone was her only outlet for interpersonal communication, then gee I don't know, maybe she wouldn't be symptomatic of chronic neurotic anxiety?
This ad just screams the idea of women being an "inconvenience", hence the quote at the top of the page.
I couldn't agree more.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that I think is so interesting is that it seems that the reason behind all of these supposed symptoms that women displayed (like calling on the phone incessantly) seem to be stemmed from nothing other than boredom.
It reminds me a lot of Betty Draper on the first season of Mad Men. Don makes her go see a therapist (who then secretly tells everything to Don, and the viewer realizes her therapy is more for his sake than her own) based on her mental state. That mental state ended up being nothing more than the state most housewives found themselves in - trapped indoors, chores and kids all day, and bored with the monotony of suburban life.
I love how the gist of the ad is to chemically restrain your patients. After all this appeared in a psychiatry journal. The problem isn't her dissatisfaction it's the nuisance she causes the doctor.
ReplyDeleteI thought this ad was especially awful as well. I liked what you had to say about the drugs being meant "to make the therapists life easier, rather than actually help with whatever issue the client may be facing." Sometimes I feel like the medical field is so factory like - get in, diagnose fast, prescribe, get out. I wish it be more personalized, and if it were I think we would get some better results.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcHdF1eHhgc
ReplyDeleteThink they got it right?
By the 'excessive use of the telephone' standard, every 7th grader should be on Stelazine.
ReplyDeleteAnd STELAZINE?! It causes massive tardive's dyskinesia and other irreversable side effects.
But it was new and marketed like mad--OUTSIDE the mental hospitals.