When I told several people in my life I would be writing about feminism and mental health, they didn’t understand. “Why is mental health a feminist issue?” they asked. So let’s talk about that F-word, feminism.
To review, perbell hooks, an acclaimed feminist theorist, “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression” — for everyone.
So where does mental health fit into the picture?
Women’s Mental Health Isn’t Taken Seriously
“Mental health is a feminist issue because women’s experiences have often been, and continue to be, pathologized,” says Dr. Mindy J. Erchull, professor of psychological science at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. “Women are more likely to be referred to as ‘crazy’ for example — both in daily conversation and in the media. Women have also had typical life experiences characterized as ‘disordered.’”
But here’s the hard truth about women, mental illness, and their symptoms:
Women Have High Mental Health Diagnosis Rates
The most common mental illness, anxiety, affects more than40 millionadults every year in the United States.Anxiety disorderssuch as generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder aretwice as likelyto affect women as men. Of the300 million peoplewho live with depression worldwide, women experience depression twice as often as men.
Post-traumatic stress disorder affects approximately 7.7 million adults in the U.S., and women aremore likelyto have PTSD than men. Why? Rape is the leading cause of PTSD and90 percentof adult victims and82 percentof juvenile victims are female. Of the estimated1.6 to 5.9 percentof the adult U.S. population diagnosed withborderline personality disorder, 75 percent are women.
While bipolar disorder isequally commonin women and men, research suggests women experience rapid cycling bipolar disorder at three times the rate of men. Women have more depressed and mixed episodes than men as well.
An estimated30 millionpeople suffer from an eating disorder in the U.S. Of these,20 millionare women. Since 1930, there has been a rise in anorexia in young women between the ages of 15 to 19 every single decade. Bulimia among 10 to 39-year-old women tripled between 1988 and 1993 alone.
Finally, women arethree times more likelyto attempt suicide than men (more on this later).
Women and Oppression
At least part of the reason women experience higher rates of mental illness, particularly anxiety and depression, may be linked to the oppression they face on a regular basis, something the feminist movement fights against.
“As more research has been done, we’ve also accumulated scientific evidence pointing to the negative physical and mental health consequences of oppression,” says Erchull. “This has made it easier for feminists to argue to a broader audience that mental health is a feminist issue.”
In a study published in the journalSex Roles, for example, researchers from the University of Missouri-Kansas and Georgia State University found a “link between physical safety concerns and psychological distress” when women experience sexual harassment, objectification, and violence.
The pervasive sexism women encounter can lead directly to symptoms of mental illness.
In addition, the gender role gymnastics women still must playtake a toll on mental health.
“Increasingly, women are expected to function as carer, homemaker, and breadwinner — all while being perfectly shaped and impeccably dressed — while having less reward and control,” Oxford University Professor Daniel Freemantold Bustle. “Given that domestic work is undervalued, and considering that women tend to be paid less, find it harder to advance in a career, have to juggle multiple roles, and are bombarded with images of apparent female ‘perfection,’ it would be surprising if there weren’t some emotional cost.”
Why This Also Matters for Men
The issue of mental health and feminism pertains to men as well. They’re not immune from mental illness.
Men who are raped have a65 percentchance of developing PTSD. Men are more likely than women to developschizophrenia. And yes, men receive diagnoses of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, BPD, substance abuse issues, and eating disorders as well.
“Boys need healthy self-esteem,” writes hooks inFeminism Is For Everybody. “They need love. And a wise and loving feminist politics can provide the only foundation to save the lives of male children. … What is needed is a vision of masculinity where self-esteem and self-love of one’s unique being forms the basis of identity.”
Complicating the Conversation
Perhaps most importantly, like the larger feminist movement, conversations around mental health need to broaden to include a wider range of intersectional identities and experience.
“The mental health challenges for a white, cisgender, heterosexual, well-educated, upper-middle class woman working in management at a Fortune 500 company are likely to be different than those of a Latinx, transgender woman who doesn’t have access to safe housing, is food insecure, and can’t find stable employment outside of sex work,” says Erchull. “We need to complicate rather than simplify these discussions.”
This is especially true in the mental health field where any number of identity markers and the cultural response to them have a huge impact on our well-being.
Feminism and Mental Health Now
Feminism has already taken steps to incorporate the mental health needs of a diverse population into its fold.
There is more work to be done.
Access to high-quality mental health care that is attainable, not only financially but logistically, such as clinicians within walking distance or on public transportation routes, remains out of reach for a large percentage of those who need mental health care. Despiteone in five Americansliving with mental illness in any given year, 60 percent don’t receive treatment and 26 percent of adults living in homeless shelters are mentally ill.
Gendered mental health diagnosis, such as BPD, also needs to continue to be challenged, especially as we work to dismantle the gendered notion of having an emotionally-based disorder in the first place.
“We, as a culture, must stop using language and stereotypes that presents females as hysterical, emotional beings who are socialized toward co-dependency,”writesVanvuren. “We need to dismantle the stereotype that men are supposed to be strong and shouldn’t need to ask for help, as well as the notion that they don’t show their emotions.”
“Tarring every woman with a mental illness with the crazy brush, or just lumping us in with any person of the female persuasion who’s perceived to act irrationally or just in a way you don’t like, is archaic and silly,”writesJR Thrope for Bustle. “We deserve nuanced, informed responses to our disease, not labels that target some imagined ‘irrational’ aspect of our gender.”
Our goal at Talkspace is to provide the most up-to-date, valuable, and objective information on mental health-related topics in order to help readers make informed decisions.
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