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The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tr...

Kate Moore

Start date: April 1, 2022

Finish date: June 30, 2022

Discussion: Book Discussions

Why we're reading this: 2Q22 NF group read poll winner.
[close] 2Q22 NF group read poll winner.

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What Members Thought

Dec 11, 2022 Cheryl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

First lets just say thank goodness I was born in this time. I cannot imagine being a woman in the late 1800s ( as in this book) where a woman is essentially not recognized as human. Her husband owns her, the children, her earnings etc etc and then has the right to institutionalize her at his will. This is what Elizabeth Packard endured. What????????????? It is True

I first encountered Elizabeth Packard at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, NJ where the theater director Emily Mann (who I have to g ...more

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Jan 13, 2022 Natalie [genreneutralreader] rated it liked it

There were times I LOVED this book. And although I feel guilty saying what I am about to say, I have to admit that my average rating of the book is mainly due to my annoyance of Elizabeth Packard. The title of the book seemingly references the men who tried to silence her. Reading the book, I couldn't help but think that she, herself was her own worst enemy. She not only never could hold a thought inside her head without spitting it out, even when she had means and opportunity to help herself. S There were times I LOVED this book. And although I feel guilty saying what I am about to say, I have to admit that my average rating of the book is mainly due to my annoyance of Elizabeth Packard. The title of the book seemingly references the men who tried to silence her. Reading the book, I couldn't help but think that she, herself was her own worst enemy. She not only never could hold a thought inside her head without spitting it out, even when she had means and opportunity to help herself. She telegraphed every move she was going to make before she made it and was continuously surprised by her abusers using her own words against her over and over and over and over. (If the saying is that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results, I would say Elizabeth often seemed to fit the bill.)

The novel was terrifying when considering that the circumstances in the book make it clear that in Elizabeth Packard's lifetime women in America were literally the property of their husbands. The novel educated me on that issue in a way that as a woman you viscerally feel how vulnerable that position was. The fact that a husband could put his wife in a mental institution simply for disagreeing with him is shocking and apalling. The hypocrisy of the men condemning her for examining her churches denominational beliefs when they, themselves had done the same and switched denominations just a couple years prior was particularly galling. The idea that a large percentage of society REFUSED to acknowledge any danger of letting one man, the head of an asylum, make all the decisions unchallenged about the care of every patient what shocking.

The cruelty of the patients' treatment and neglect by both the mental institution as well as society was the truly horrific part about the novel. How society turned a blind eye to abusive spouses and institutions just so they didn't have to THINK about those who are the subjects of the abuse and those that may even have actually BEEN mentally ill is the saddest part of all.

The author's assertion that history repeats itself is also ironic as it is still happening and people are still denying that it does as long as "the majority of society" also agrees. Isn't society STILL judging people as insane and dangerous if those people disagree with them? It would be great if books like this one actually encouraged us all to examine whether or not we are not too much like Elizabeth's husband/doctor/peers..... ...more

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