Article ID: CBB077020892

In Plain Sight: Open Doors, Mixed-sex Wards and Sexual Abuse in English Psychiatric Hospitals, 1950s—Early 1990s (2018)

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This 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.

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Article Louise Hide; Joanna Bourke (2018) Cultures of Harm in Institutions of Care: Introduction. Social History of Medicine (pp. 679-687). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB077020892/

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Authors & Contributors
Hilton, Claire
Katarina Kärnebro
Crawley, Alex
Zhang, Everett Yuehong
Hide, Louise
Hewitt, Jessie
Concepts
Psychiatric hospitals
Mental disorders and diseases
Women
Psychiatry
Men
Public health
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century, late
21st century
Places
England
United States
London (England)
Ireland
Dublin (Ireland)
Georgia (U.S.)
Institutions
HM Pentonville Prison (The Ville)
Charity Organization Society
St James’s Home for Female Inebriates
National Health Service (Great Britain)
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