Hysteria

There are so many options for how to work through word choice. At Covalent, we often write blogs, social media posts, websites, speeches, slide decks and reports and brochures for our clients. We focus deeply on word choice. Connotation, denotation, definition, etymology, inference, historical usage, origins. But, what does a word truly mean? How will it land on the audience? And what will they hear when we say what we say? 

This month’s word is hysteria, in honor of March being Women’s History Month. 

A hysterical joke is funny. A hysterical person is out of control. A hysterical video of a cat in booties is shareable. A hysterical reaction is over-the-top and unacceptable. 

Most people know that hysteria and hysterectomy both find their origins in the uterus. The word hysterical comes from the Latin word hystericus, which means "of the womb". Hystericus comes from the Greek word hysterikos, which means "of the womb" or "suffering in the womb." The base noun is hystera, which means "womb.”  

If hysteria was originally a word used to describe a woman’s behavior—crying, overreacting, laughing uncontrollably—then how did it become such a benign description of anyone’s reaction to a joke? 

Menstruation, childbirth and menopause have long been a mystery to male physicians and biologists. Not that they can’t understand the biological mechanisms at work, but men fundamentally struggle with what it feels like to ovulate, menstruate, gestate a child inside your body and birth a child from your body. It’s not “like” anything else in the human condition and can’t be translated into a kidney stone or a leg cramp or a wound. Growing up, women didn’t talk about such things. And men weren’t expected to understand. To be “on your period” was a clue that you weren’t rational, would cry and weren’t yourself. In the Middle Ages, being on your period was called being “on your flowers,” a much more beautiful phrase. As flowers precede fruits, menstruation was essential for fertility and the continued existence of the human race.

For most women, 25% of 40 years of their lives is spent paying attention to their uterus and its natural biology. It’s not a distraction from who they are. It’s an integral part of living with an organ and biological system common to 50% of humanity. 

When I was pregnant with my daughter, everything changed. My body felt different. My brain released hormones that made my mind think differently.

Our minds can understand something, but experience leads to a physicalization of those thoughts that can’t be described or unveiled to the uninitiated. 

And when I miscarried my second child, I felt like a devil and a murderer and a failure. My body had failed to carry the weight of life. It knew it. And I knew it. And the few people I told about it could try to understand, but only my mind and my body knew what it felt like. Each woman who miscarries feels differently both physically and emotionally. The very name itself - miscarriage - makes it sound like it's your body’s fault. And you did something wrong. Estimates are that 10-25% of known pregnancies are miscarried or stillbirths in America in 2025. Miscarriages are common. They are not abnormalities, they are the way the body works. But a miscarriage feels lonely and unique so very few women talk about their miscarriage, even with other women.

Every single month, a woman’s body goes through the same evolution of hormones, albeit on a smaller scale. There is no description for how it affects your tissues and muscles and mind. Life was possible. There was the potential for godlike power inside you. And now it is gone. Every month. This is the cycle of womanhood for most women you know from teens through middle age. 

I have been hysterical all my life. Even when I’m not overly emotional or incredibly pee-in-your-pants funny. You women reading this—you are hysterical too. And don’t let anyone tell you that it’s inappropriate or unacceptable. It’s your body. I believe God made it with a perfect system of preparation, potential, failure and success. A cycle of life that you live with, to accept and love every day. Even if the connotation of society seems otherwise.  

It’s Women’s History Month in March and I invite you to explore the language you use for the “fairest sex” to reflect your true views of women. And … consider the origins of “hysteria,” as well as these common words: 

• The working world was once highly gendered with the use of suffixes to denote who was doing what work, for example, "fishwives," "bookwomen," "butterwomen," and "spinster," which meant a spinner of thread or yarn before it came to be used as a legal category for single adult women.
• Though it has a low-status origin, meaning "loaf kneader," the word "lady" becomes an honorific title in Old English for, among others, the head of a household, the head of a monastery or a queen.
• The word "girl" first appeared in the 1300s and is used for both male and female children. By the early 1500s, “girl” had become specific to females, but it was not age-specific in this context until the 1650s.
• A “drudge” was a word for a female servant, one expected to do menial jobs in a household. That gives us our modern word drudgery, the often boring work needed to keep everyday life going.

As the Western world is redefining gender to catch up with Eastern thought and find a renaissance in individualism, I still celebrate Women’s History Month as a time to reflect on my origins as a girl and a lady and know just how hysterical I always am.