Page:Fraud of Feminism.djvu/128

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124
THE FRAUD OF FEMINISM

a female malady. If hysterical men are as common a phenomenon as certain hard-pressed Feminists would make out, what I want to know is: Where are they? While we come upon symptoms which would be commonly attributed to hysteria in well-nigh every second or third woman of whose life we have any intimate knowledge, how often do we find in men symptoms in any way resembling these! In my own experience I have come across but two cases of men giving indications of a temperament in any way analogous to that of the "hysterical woman." After all, the experience of the average layman, and in this I contend my own is more or less typical, is more important in the case of a malady manifesting itself in symptoms obvious to common observation, such as the one we are considering, than that of the medical practitioner, who by reason of his profession would be especially likely to see cases, if there were any at all, however few they might be. The possibility, moreover, at least suggests itself, that the latter may often mistake for hysteria (using the word in the sense commonly applied to the symptoms presented by women) symptoms resulting from general neurasthenia or even from purely extraneous causes, such as alcohol, drugs, etc. That this is sometimes the case is hardly open to question. That the pathological mental symptoms referred to as prevalent in the female, whether