{"id":108848,"date":"2016-08-26T17:31:39","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T17:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/lets-call-the-conspiracy-theories-about-hillarys-health-what-they-are\/"},"modified":"2016-08-26T17:31:39","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T17:31:39","slug":"lets-call-the-conspiracy-theories-about-hillarys-health-what-they-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/lets-call-the-conspiracy-theories-about-hillarys-health-what-they-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Call The Conspiracy Theories About Hillary’s Health What They Are"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you listen to right-wing media and Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton is sick. Far too sick to be president. <\/span><\/p>\n

She might be suffering from a language disorder called <\/span>dysphasia<\/span><\/a>, according to non-medical expert and Trump talking head <\/span>Katrina Pierson. Or maybe it\u2019s seizures ? at least <\/span>Fox News host Sean Hannity<\/span><\/a> thinks so. The Drudge Report is <\/span>concerned about her coughing<\/span><\/a>. Online sleuths note she\u2019s been using an awful lot of <\/span>pillows<\/span><\/a>. Rudy Giuliani <\/span>thinks it\u2019s \u201cbizarre\u201d<\/span><\/a> that she had to pee during a debate, and urged the public to Google \u201cHillary Clinton illness\u201d to learn the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump, who\u2019s never<\/a> met<\/a>\u00a0a<\/a> conspiracy<\/a> theory<\/a>\u00a0he doesn\u2019t like, has insinuated that Clinton isn\u2019t well. He declared that Clinton lacks the \u201cmental and physical stamina\u201d<\/a> to take on ISIS. He\u2019s characterized her<\/a> as<\/span>\u00a0\u201cunstable,\u201d \u201cunbalanced\u201d and \u201ctotally unhinged.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Honestly, I don\u2019t think she\u2019s all there,\u201d Trump said. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to hear the words \u201cunstable\u201d and \u201cunbalanced\u201d and not wonder if he\u2019s referring to her hormones.\u00a0<\/span>The subtext of the rumors spouted by Trump and his crew of armchair doctors is clear: Clinton is biologically unfit to lead. She\u2019s a woman, after all.<\/p>\n

Forty-six years ago, <\/span>Edgar Berman, a retired physician and Hubert Humphrey\u2019s close confidant, declared that women were temperamentally unsuited to hold high office because of their \u201craging hormonal imbalance.\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSuppose that we had a menopausal woman president who had to make the decision of the Bay of the Pigs?\u201d he pondered<\/a>. \u201cAll things being equal, I would still rather have had a male JFK make the Cuban Missile Crisis decisions than a female of similar age.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2016, it\u2019s no longer considered acceptable for public figures to opine about how women\u2019s menstrual cycles, or lack of them, disqualify them from high-ranking jobs. But that doesn\u2019t meant those opinions aren\u2019t held in private.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the heart of many conspiracy theories is some sort of human prejudice, said Mark Fenster, a law professor at the University of Florida and the author of Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

He pointed to the implicit racial motivation behind \u201cbirtherism,\u201d a conspiracy movement that alleges President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. and is thus ineligible to be president. Trump is a prominent peddler<\/a>\u00a0of this claim.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was never just that he was a child of immigrants who was born elsewhere,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was always that he was born in a Muslim country to a Muslim father. It was very specific as to what it was he represented.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Gender bias \u201cabsolutely\u201d plays a role in the conspiracy theories around Clinton\u2019s health, even if it\u2019s not the primary motivating factor, Fenster said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEvery part of his critique of her has a gender component to it,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that\u2019s true with the health conspiracies. It\u2019s very much mocking her as an \u2018old lady.\u2019\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Stephanie Shields, a professor at Pennsylvania State University who studies gender and emotion, said it\u2019s not uncommon for women aspiring to positions of power to be criticized as \u201cunstable\u201d or \u201cemotional\u201d as a way of monitoring who has a right to a voice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Calling someone emotional is a way to police their behavior, label them as irrational, and label them as not really having a legitimate basis for speaking,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The focus on Clinton\u2019s health, she said, also \u201c<\/span>goes back to always turning women into their bodies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Stretching as far back as 1900 BC, women\u2019s reproductive systems have been associated with irrational emotions. The term \u201chysteria\u201d actually comes from the Greek word for uterus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

HuffPost reporter Catherine Pearson <\/span>explains:<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Hysteria was the first mental disorder attributed to women (and only women) \u2014 a catch-all for symptoms including, but by no means limited to: nervousness, hallucinations, emotional outbursts and various urges of the sexual variety…<\/span><\/p>\n

Egyptian texts dating as far back as 1900 BC argued that hysterical disorders were caused by women\u2019s wombs moving throughout their bodies<\/strong>. The ancient Greeks believed it, too. In the 5th century BC, Hippocrates (i.e., the founder of western medicine, in what may not go down as his greatest achievement) first coined the term \u201chysteria\u201d \u2014 from \u201chystera,\u201d or uterus \u2014 and also attributed its cause to abnormal movements of the womb in a woman\u2019s body.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to laugh-off female hysteria as preposterous and antiquated pseudo-science, but the fact is, the American Psychiatric Association didn\u2019t drop the term until the early 1950s.<\/strong> And though it had taken on a very different meaning from its early roots, \u201chysterical neurosis\u201d didn\u2019t disappear from the DSM \u2014 often referred to as the bible of modern psychiatry \u2014 until 1980. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To Dianne Bystrom, the director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University, the attacks on Clinton\u2019s physical and mental health remind her of the arguments men used in the early 1900s to justify why women shouldn\u2019t have the right to vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is interesting as I sit here reflecting on suffrage today,\u201d she said, highlighting that Friday is Women\u2019s Equality Day. \u201cThe arguments are the same. Women are the frail sex, the ones that don\u2019t quite have the stamina to be involved in the ugly game of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the gender bias by the Trump campaign towards Clinton is more extreme than she can remember in recent history, calling his tactics \u201cvicious.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my years of studying male versus female rhetoric in politics races, I haven\u2019t seen anyone go this far as to attack a woman for her health when there seems to be no founded reason for it,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get real: The wild conspiracy theories around Clinton\u2019s health are a <\/span>convenient way to mask misogyny inside \u201clegitimate\u201d medical concerns. Her critics<\/span>\u00a0can\u2019t call her crazy, so instead they use stand-ins like \u201cunbalanced\u201d and lacking \u201cmental stamina.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump has a long history of gendered attacks on Clinton. He has said she doesn\u2019t \u201clook\u201d presidential<\/a>. He doesn\u2019t like her voice<\/a>. He even\u00a0made a callous joke<\/a> about someone shooting her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, he\u2019s arguing that she\u2019s not physically or mentally up for the job.\u00a0That\u2019s sexism, plain and simple.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note:\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0regularly\u00a0incites political violence<\/a>\u00a0and is a\u00a0serial liar<\/a>,\u00a0rampant xenophobe<\/a>,\u00a0racist<\/a>,\u00a0misogynist<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0birther<\/a>\u00a0who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims ? 1.6 billion members of an entire religion ? from entering the U.S.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you listen to right-wing media and Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton is sick. Far too sick to be president. She might be suffering from a language disorder called dysphasia, according to non-medical expert and Trump talking head Katrina Pierson. Or maybe it\u2019s seizures ? at least Fox News host Sean Hannity thinks so. The Drudge Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}