Abstract
SummaryThis article investigates the consequences of unlocking psychiatric wards and allowing male and female patients and staff to mix freely in the post-war period. I argue that the sexes were allowed to socialise with each other primarily for the benefit of male patients, and that some superintendents were ‘blind’ to the dangers of sexual abuse to which female patients were exposed, especially given the growing number of male ‘sexual psychopaths’ who were being admitted to open wards. While male nurses did complain about mixed wards in the mid 1960s, it was not until the rise of feminism and patient activism that the extent of sexual abuse and violence in hospitals began to be revealed a decade later. By the 1980s, despite calls to return to segregated living, psychiatric hospitals were no longer able to fund single-sex wards, exposing many women to sexual danger and deterring them from seeking help as in-patients.
Highlights
In 1992, the mental health charity MIND published a policy paper titled Stress on Women, which was part of a nationwide campaign to end sexual harassment and abuse in mental health settings.1 Mixed-sex wards came in for particular criticism
I argue that the sexes were allowed to socialise with each other primarily for the benefit of male patients, and that some superintendents were ‘blind’ to the dangers of sexual abuse to which female patients were exposed, especially given the growing number of male ‘sexual psychopaths’ who were being admitted to open wards
While male nurses did complain about mixed wards in the mid 1960s, it was not until the rise of feminism and patient activism that the extent of sexual abuse and violence in hospitals began to be revealed a decade later
Summary
In 1992, the mental health charity MIND published a policy paper titled Stress on Women, which was part of a nationwide campaign to end sexual harassment and abuse in mental health settings. Mixed-sex wards came in for particular criticism. In 1992, the mental health charity MIND published a policy paper titled Stress on Women, which was part of a nationwide campaign to end sexual harassment and abuse in mental health settings.. I and a number of other women I know have had very bad experiences on mixed wards. Her research project is titled ‘Cultures of Harm in Residential Institutions for Long-term Adult Care, Britain 1945–1980s’. Her first monograph, Gender and Class in English Asylums, 1890–1914 was published in 2014. 2 The Daily Mail campaign has been running for over 20 years. See Sophie Borland, ‘Will the Shame of our Mixed Wards ever End?’, Daily Mail, 17 March 2017, 1
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