Through much of human history, men have been confounded by women. Men were (are often are still) seen as the default, and women as an inscrutable variant. So if something were wrong, or even just different about women, it must have something to do with their uterus. The word "hysteria" came from the Greek word for womb, hystera, and the malady called hysteria meant a uterus that moved about in the body, wreaking havoc on the other organs.
Doctors knew so much about hysteria that they put on public demonstrations of women displaying it with fainting and seizures, and came up with all sorts of remedies. Later on it was dubbed a mental illness, and became a catch-all diagnosis for women who experienced pain or "inappropriate" emotions. However, the symptoms of hysteria are easily explained by either real physical ailments men rarely suffered, society's unrealistic expectations for women's behavior, or a mental illness that would be likely be further explored in a man. Read the history of hysteria at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: André Brouillet)
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