Gender Differences In Women's Mental Health

Improved Essays
It is a widely accepted view that health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being. International data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows that mental illness affects between 20 and 25 per cent of all people during some time in their life, that one in four families in the world has at least one member with mental health difficulties and that four of the six leading causes of disability are due to mental health problems (depression, alcohol abuse, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder).

It is recognised that women’s mental health is an essential part in their overall health.
Women have a unique biological, psychological and social factors that make them more vulnerable to developing a mental illness. Mental health
…show more content…
Gender differences can be seen in the rates of common mental health issues including depression and anxiety in which women predominate. Bipolar depression for example is twice as prevalent in women as it is in …show more content…
These can be mainly subdivided into three broad categories: the female body or biological theory, the female personality or psychological theory and lastly the female lives or social theories (Stoppard, J.M., 2000). Today women are expected to fulfil a variety of different roles at the one time. These can be wife, mother, carer, employee, home-maker and meeting these strenuous demands can lead to stressful situations. Not only do these demands affect each other but also the health of the women and can pose problems for female mental health. Women are disadvantaged also by the multiple roles they perform in society as carers, partners and workers. And throughout their lifetime women are also more likely to be affected by physical and sexual abuse, all of which can have serious physical and mental health repercussions (WHO,

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    (Dunbar) Like women who endure male dominance who are given implicit if not explicit support to control women through intimidation, threats, physical beatings, rape, and sexual violence. Half of women in mental health hospitals were exposed to physical or sexual abuse. Women are more likely to sustain abuse than men. Men react to abuse with aggression, while women are likely to use self-destructive measures such as mutilation or suicidal attempts.…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The inequality in the sexual division of power and labor in the household environment was seen. Through her experiences and that of her friends, women are seen to bear the brunt of the daily care of their children with or without combination with their professional roles while men provided little to no support. This can be attributed to an unwritten cultural/societal rule that women are in charge of the daily care of their babies. This disparity that favors men over women has a profound implication on women’s health and well-being. This is because, most women end up becoming dissatisfied, leading to negative feelings and mental health issues e.g.postpartum depression.…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Brigid's Hope Case Study

    • 1721 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Brigid’s Hope is an arm of agency program developed by the Cathedral Health and Outreach Ministries. It is an umbrella of non-profit organization organized by Christ Church Cathedral to operate several health social services outreach programs. Brigid’s Hope mission goal is to “providing services that help restore dignity, self- respect, and hope to Houston poor and homelessness”. This is carried out by providing support and assisting incarcerated women from age thirty-five and older that are out of imprisonment and chronically homelessness in transition out of homelessness into a self-sufficiency by providing housing, mentoring, individual therapy, life skills development, group therapy, transition planning to the community, spiritual support.…

    • 1721 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Corston reports that may women have been filed by the NHS and are too ill for prison, suggesting that prison is being used as a holding cell for those who the government have no proper provisions for. She also states that mental health services are failing to address the appropriate needs of women when they require help. Department of Public Health, university of oxford) conducted a study and found that women in prison are five times more likely to suffer a mental health illness with 78% of prisoners showing some level of psychological problems upon admittance to prison.…

    • 98 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After reading the article Tale of Two Crises by James Knol and also by watching the film Zimbardo Prison Experiment, I was able to realize how imprisonment and its environment can take a toll on the prisoners overall health. Throughout the experiment, which was conducted through six days, the guards became aggressive towards the prisoners. While the prisoners reacted by becoming stressed and irrational. After the completion of the experiment, they were able to analyze four different lessons. One being how “… human nature can be dramatically transformed in a total institution; (2) such settings can cause individuals to act in ways they ordinarily would not; (3) such settings can cause good people to be induced or seduced into behaving in ways…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Medicated Americans” is about America’s antidepressant use and how most of the time the terms “depression” and “Depression” can lead to incorrect prescriptions of these antidepressants. The author Charles Barber goes into detail on the numerous amount of misdiagnoses for depression due to the misunderstanding of the word. Like depression, most other disorders are not being treated correctly and a majority of the people who are being treated are not receiving the full benefits they need. 43 percent of people who have been prescribed antidepressants had no psychiatric diagnosis prior to the prescription. Females are twice as likely to be prescribed psychiatric drugs than men and two thirds of doctors did not tell their patients the extent…

    • 557 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women respond differently to drugs than men do. There are several differences, women are more susceptible to cravings for drugs than men are. Women also have different obstacles to overcome with addiction. Women who have children or are pregnant may not even search for treatment due to the fear of their children being taken away from them. Women are also more often victims of violence.…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Interpersonal violence against women is endemic in our society. Thus, it is estimated that 14% to 20% of women will experience rape at some point in their lives; that 25% to 28% will be physically abused in a sexual-romantic relationship; and that 8% to 24% will be stalked by someone they know or by a stranger. When these statistics are added to the 25% to 35% likelihood that the average adult woman has been sexually abused as a child, it is clear that the epidemiology of interpersonal violence against women is a pressing social issue (Briere & Jordan, 2004). Equally concerning is the association between these various forms of victimization and mental health issues in women. Female survivors of sexual trauma are vulnerable to a wide range of…

    • 1018 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Gendered-Based Abuse and depression occurs more to men than women. It is said that when women fall into depression they tend to get assistance from a specialist. This is definitely the best way to handle depression, because doctors are specialize to help people with stress. On the other hand, men do not look for help from a doctor. Men fall into the wrong hands and they start drinking or using drugs.…

    • 115 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The definition of mental illness is as follows: “A condition which causes serious disorder in a person’s behavior or thinking” (Oxford Dictionary). Within John Steinbeck’s famous story, Of Mice and Men, the character Lennie suffers from a mental disability, which ultimately leads to his death. In a similar way, millions of people suffer from a form of mental illness, and are often are not treated for their disorders, which frequently ends in a form of tragedy for the individual. Often, those around them are uninformed on the subject and they either become bystanders to the individual’s downfall, or treat the person as an ill-mannered idiot. Within some countries, such as the United States of America, the nation’s leaders are trying to bring their societies out of these “dark ages,” and give the current and following generations the education they require on this subject.…

    • 1156 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Mental health is one of the leading causes of health issues globally. One in four people will be affected with at least one mental health disorder during their lifetime. A person can only imagine how costly this must be for a country. This leads them to ask the question: how does mental health affect the economy of countries? In order to answer this inquiry, it is only logical to first explore the global prominence of mental health, how countries are using funding to help with the issue, and then see how the funding affects these countries from an economic aspect.…

    • 1792 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Introduction: Attention Arousing and Orienting Material: I first became aware of anxiety when I was in high school. That’s when I realized I was different than everyone else, or at least from most. I couldn’t talk in front of the class or become friends with new people because I just couldn’t talk to anyone. The idea of people watching me was terrifying. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how serious anxiety could be when I was in high school.…

    • 839 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This essay will analyse the statement 'mental illness is a social problem”. To examine this statement the sociological perspectives will be discussed as well as common social contributors to mental illness with in the concept of gender and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender and inter-sexual community (LGBTI). The aim of this essay is discuss and elaborate on the concept of gender and more specifically the LGBTI community in Australia and how mental illness affects according to gender, gender identity and sexuality and how mental illness is a social problem. Implications and limitations of sociological perspectives related to the sociology of mental illness and how 'mental illness is a social problem ' will also be discussed. By applying sociological and theoretical perspectives as well as structure-agency debate and the social and biomedical modes role in consideration to the issue, will help support the statement ‘mental illness is a social problem’.…

    • 2088 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Health is a product of many factors, these factors include biological; sex, genes and age, and social; gender, environments and class. Biological factors are considered independent and generally stable with few notably exceptions such as sex changes. Unlike social factors which are dependable, and within a constant paradigm of stable and flux, as they depend on cultural norms and perceptions which create different groups of people or demographics. These characteristics include behaviours and attitudes which in turn are hard to change but are achievable over-time, and are different within certain demographics. Gender being within such a paradigm can and does affect the health of people negatively and more invasively due to the culture norms and perceptions of masculinity and femineity as oppose to the sex of male and female.…

    • 1124 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Men's Rights Activists

    • 1739 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Are Men’s Rights an Issue? Men’s Rights Activists also known as MRAs are misogynistic, anti-feminists that want to put women back in the kitchen, or at least that’s what the general public is lead to believe. Proponents of the Men's Rights movement claim that the purpose is to bring awareness to issues that both men and boys face. These two claims are two very different statements, so who's telling the truth?…

    • 1739 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays