Histérica: El grito definitivo con el que recuperar tu voz / Hysterical

About Histérica: El grito definitivo con el que recuperar tu voz / Hysterical

Uno de los títulos de teoría feminista más potentes de la actualidad, avalada por relevantes escritoras feministas del momento.

El grito definitivo con el que recuperar tu voz.

Entre 2016 y 2018, Elissa Bassist vio a más de veinte profesionales médicos debido a una variedad de dolencias misteriosas. No obstante, fue un acupuntor quien le sugirió que parte de su dolor físico podría ser una expresión de furia enjaulada, y que tratar su voz solucionaría el problema. Y así lo hizo.
 
En Histérica, Bassist explica cómo las mujeres interiorizamos y perpetuamos las directivas patriarcales sobre nuestra voz, y cómo ello nos dificulta y a veces impide emocionarnos o simplemente hablar. El silencio impuesto siempre duele más que cualquier cosa que se pueda decir.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

Writer Elissa Bassist shares her journey to reclaim her authentic voice in a culture that doesn’t listen to women in this medical mystery, cultural criticism, and rallying cry.

Between 2016 and 2018, Elissa Bassist saw over twenty medical professionals for a variety of mysterious ailments. Bassist had what millions of American women had: pain that didn’t make sense to doctors, a body that didn’t make sense to science, a psyche that didn’t make sense to mankind. But then an acupuncturist suggested some of her physical pain could be caged fury finding expression, and that treating her voice would treat the problem. It did.

Growing up, Bassist’s family, boyfriends, school, work, and television had the same expectation for a woman’s voice: less is more. She was called dramatic and insane for speaking her mind; she was accused of overreacting and playing victim for having unexplained physical pain; she was ignored or rebuked like women throughout history for using her voice “inappropriately” by expressing sadness or suffering or anger or joy.  

Because of this, she said “yes” when she meant “no”; she didn’t tweet #MeToo; and she never spoke without fear of being “too emotional.” So, she felt rage, but like a good woman, repressed it. In Hysterical, Bassist explains how girls and women internalize and perpetuate directives about their voice, making it hard to emote or “just speak up” and “burn down the patriarchy.” But her silence hurt more than anything she could ever say. Hysterical is a memoir of a voice lost and found, and a primer on new ways to think about a woman’s voice, where it’s being squashed and where it needs amplification. Bassist breaks her own silences and calls on others to do the same—to unmute their voice, listen to it above all others, and use it again without regret.