Anomaly and Disease in Women Writers of the early 20th century

Abstract

As a reaction against the increasingly legitimized and popularized studies about Chilean women's pathologies and the common acceptance of women's diseases, the female writers of the period acutely criticize medical science in their work. Based on the analysis of four female authors' writing, three ways to condemn this reality are suggested: 1) posing a new interpretation of the "disease" that denounces the social and cultural system that produces it; 2) rejecting the diagnose of "ill", together with the theoretical basis, presuppositions and methods of the science that supports the illness; and 3) based on the "natural" difference between genders, formulating models of women who are seen as morally and emotionally "superior" to their masculine peers (healthier and more stable), who are represented as weaker and more gullible.