From witchcraft to hysteria to BPD : a brief history of female insanity. Women and madness : a historical view. A "chattering, canting age." Two women's histories : Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Alice James -- Taxonomy as destiny? The birth of labels. "Mad" women and "Bad" men. Mental illness and labeling theory : are we blaming the victim? Gender roles, mental illness, and the price of deviance. Psychiatry's family Bible : DSM. The clinical realities of naming and diagnosis. The personality disorders : prevalence and politics. Gender bias in diagnosis -- The rise and fall of the borderline concept. Object relations, developmental arrest, and the borderline syndrome. Critiques of theoretical formulations -- Toward an etiology of borderline symptomatology. Biology as destiny? Abuse traumata and psychological distress. The BPD/PTSD controversy : who's on first? Development of the self, developmental psychopathology and the borderline disorder -- Through the looking glass : female socialization and personality disorder. In the looking glass. A case of privileged meaning : the reification of autonomy. Continuities and discontinuities in women's coming of age -- Anger, dependency, and fear : women at the border. Member of the wedding. Autonomy revisited : personality disorder and ideas about autonomy. Anger, dependency, and personality disorder -- "Borderline" self-destructiveness and therapeutic breakdown. Self-injury and BPD. Borderline women and the dialogue of suicide. Treatment at the border.