Odd Girl Out: Rachel Simmons

Odd Girl Out is a book by Rachel Simmons that discusses the culture of aggression in females, and how our society deals with this aggression.  Since girls have been trained to be polite and quiet, they have learned how o hide their aggression and use more subtle and manipulative tactics to express their anger.  Through history, people's understand of religion (in this case Christianity, since that is the religion I am choosing to focus on for my research paper) impacts the perception of women and how they should behave.  Too often, people misinterpret religion to oppress groups of people.  In early psychology, women who had mental health disorders were often labeled as "demonically possessed" or "witches."  And a large portion of those occupying mental institutions were female.  However, as people's understanding of religion grew, so did their understanding of mental illness in women.

Odd Girl Out helped me to narrow the focus of my paper from general history of psychology, to a history of the mental health care of women.  Reading this book has helped me to see how big an impact our culture has on young girls.  The things they are taught they should be, and the ways they are taught to behave are a direct result of our cultural norms.  Those norms are very much affected by religion.  As our society has gone through times of both spiritual enlightenment and freedom, to periods of confusion and oppression, the treatment of mental illness in women especially has also undergone those same periods of enlightenment and confusion along side religion.  From here, I plan to find information about the growth of Christianity in America, and the ebbs and flows of understanding in the people who practice the religion.