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So how do you cure a “condition” that coincidentally was diagnosed almost entirely in women who dared disobey their Victorian husbands? The prescription for female hysteria was usually a good spot of doctor-administered vaginal massage until the woman achieved “hysterical paroxysm.”

Yes. The cure for female hysteria was a doctor’s hand down your bloomers until you were screaming his name. Is it any wonder the list of symptoms for female hysteria was so long? Doctors, astonishingly enough, grew tired of “curing” all these women. According to Rachel P. Maines’s The Technology of Orgasm, the hand strain led doctors to invent the vibrator, and thus this section comes to a happy ending.

FOUR GREAT WOMEN BURIED BY THEIR BOOBS

WHILE modern women still deal with entirely too much job discrimination, domestic abuse, and sex with Gene Simmons, that’s nothing compared to the old days. Back when feminist was a homophobic adjective and suffrage was what women got when dinner was cold, some ingenious voices were never heard because they just happened to be attached to a pair of breasts.

4. ROSALIND FRANKLIN

Rosalind Franklin was a pioneer in the field of genetics, whose work on unraveling the DNA double helix was largely ignored. Franklin studied at Cambridge in the 1940s, a school that didn’t give women degrees at the time, figuring they wouldn’t know what to do with something like an advanced biology degree—probably sew it a little suit and take it for summer constitutionals.

Still, Franklin went on to research molecular biology around the same time as Francis Crick and James Watson, the scientists credited with discovering DNA’s double helix model. In fact, she wasn’t far from making the discovery herself and was well ahead of Crick and Watson when her boss, Maurice Wilkins, intervened. Doing his duty as a concerned citizen, Wilkins knew he couldn’t trust such valuable scientific knowledge in the hands of a mere woman—surely it was only a matter of time before she accidentally baked it into a pie!

Working behind Franklin’s back, Wilkins gave her findings to Watson, who used them and Crick’s LSD-spiked intuition (see page 123) to leapfrog Franklin and discover DNA’s double helix pattern before her.

Their double helix model was published in an issue of Nature magazine, instantly making them international celebrities. Rather than acknowledging the role a woman played in the actual discovery, Nature published Franklin’s not yet complete work in the same journal. Sure, publishing the almost-discovery of DNA’s model in the same issue as the actual discovery might seem redundant, but Nature couldn’t miss out on the adorable hilarity of a woman trying to do science. That was probably considered the monkey riding a bicycle of its day.

Buried by the boobs

In 1962, Crick, Watson, and Maurice goddamned Wilkins (whose contribution to molecular biology amounted to hating women) received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, while Franklin received the Dick-All Prize for Diddly-Squat. Franklin’s huge contribution was almost totally ignored in Watson’s paper. We never thought we’d say this, but damn you, boobs!

3. CAMILLE CLAUDEL

Camille Claudel was a young, shockingly talented sculptress whose works are today considered masterpieces. Her career path followed the classic artist model: fabulous early works, discovery by a great mentor, total insanity, dying unloved, alone, and weird. (This is why your parents didn’t let you go to art school.) But while some artists go crazy because it’s the cool thing to do (we’re looking at you Van Gogh), Claudel was force-fed crazy pills for her socially unacceptable lack of a penis.

In 1800s Paris, women were prohibited from studying the nude human form, because this would’ve ruined the wedding-night surprise. (Surprise! It’s a penis.) Claudel was therefore unable to gain entry to the École des Beaux-Arts, where she would have been able to promote her work and receive commissions. In short, Claudel needed some cock in the worst way.