White men and weak masculinity: men in the public asylums in Victoria, Australia, and New Zealand, 1860s–1900s

Abstract

This article reveals a set of formulations of masculine identity through the fragments of extant casebook evidence from nineteenth-century psychiatric institutions in Victoria, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand. It shows that some patterns in the identification of masculinity and insanity emerge, also highlighting the relevance of individual stories and 'cases' to fully understand how masculine identities were fashioned through medical institutional language.