A Brief Note On Women And Mental Illness

“The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story that surrounds many different topics. The narrator is living in a time period where women were looked down upon and mental illnesses were misunderstood. The narrator of the story suffers from post-partum depression and is recording her journey in a journal. Her husband, the typical man at the time, put her on “the rest cure,” as he believed that mental illnesses should be treated like physical illnesses. He brings her to a house far away from other people and makes her stay in the nursery. The nursery had shabby yellow wallpaper which sickened her, but intrigued her at the same time. The rest cure was basically confinement, both physically and mentally. She was deprived of

This may be due to the negative stigma attached to depression. Twenty-seven percent of Canadians admitted to being afraid of being around someone who suffers from a mental illness (Centre for Mental Health and Addiction, 2012). In addition, one third of individuals suffering from depression are forced to resign once it is known that they had a mental illness. The likelihood of women experiencing depression is two times that of men. Moreover, statistics indicate that they are one and a half times more prone to being hospitalized due to depression (Mood Disorders Society of Canada,2009).

The connection between gender and psychological disorders seems to be hard to ignore and yet today we still lack the distinct research and treatment necessary to resolve the epidemic of psychological disorders in women. Women are twice as likely to suffer from anxiety disorders than men, a study showed 10% of mothers obtain a mental health problem during motherhood while only 6% of fathers experience these issues (“Mental Health Statistics: Men and Women.") and women predominate over men in rates of major depression (Astbury, Cabral). The gap in between men and women experiencing these mental health problems seems to be clear but we have to ask ourselves, why? We often associate mental health issues with individual

People lose interest in things they used to enjoy and may withdraw from others.” While the CMHA does not explicitly note in its definition that both men and women may experience this mental illness, its use of the words “some” and “people,” instead of women, can be seen as suggesting that both sexes are susceptible. The assertion that both men and women can experience postpartum depression is corroborated by a study done by Escribà-Agüir and Artazcoz (2011). Despite the position of these two sources, Thurtle (1995) explicitly notes that diagnosis of postpartum depression should be “restricted to mothers with a depressive illness,” asserting that this pathology exclusively affects women. Being that Thurtle’s study was published in 1995, within a decade of researchers beginning to study sex differences, and similarities, and only a year after women were allowed to participate in biomedical research, it is likely that they did not consider investigating the illness through a gendered lens.

The article that I read was called “Depression, and Women.” This article by Doctor Terri Apter describes the connection between women and depression. Doctor Apter goes over certain things pertaining to the topic that she discovered when she was researching it. Apter even spoke about the writer Allison Pearson and her novel about a character with depression. Later on in the article, Apter compared one of the lines in the book to the symptoms of depression. Those symptoms were lack of energy and a feeling of emptiness. She also used statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health, or the NIMH, to back up her statement, which was that women are more likely to experience depression within their lives. Considering the article is about depression,

In conclusion, my overall findings indicate that gender does affect attitudes towards mental illness. Male participants reported having more negative attitudes towards individuals with mental illness. This may be due to the fact that in in American society, males tend to be socialized to think and behave in ways that society has labeled as masculine which are then reinforced though the media and institutions. Males are expected to be strong, physically, and emotionally, thus any sign of weakness is seen as non-masculine and therefore, feminine, which is deeply looked down upon. Unlike the majority of physical illnesses, mental illnesses are often associated with weakness. My findings reinforce the existing research that mental illness is stigmatized,

Schizophrenia is one of the most serious and disabling of all mental disorders, and its core symptoms are seen in virtually all parts of the world (World Health Organization, 1979). The history of schizophrenia is hard to identify because people who had a mental illness, mental impedance or physical abnormalities were largely treated or diagnosed the same. Schizophrenia occurs in 1 percent of the population in the United States of America. Schizophrenia was called dementia praecox by Emil Kraeplin in 1896. Dementia praecox was identified by gradually poorer functioning.

A depression disorder is characterized by an episode of intense sadness, depressed moods or marked loss of interest or pleasure in nearly activities. Studies have revealed that depression in women is two to three times more prevalent in women than in men. With this being conveyed women deal with infidelity stresses and stresses and conflicts generally in a manner where depression is dominant. Depression disorder is rampant therefore in women where

Early on in the identification of mental disorders as it relates to women, there were two dominant approaches, supernatural and scientific (Tasca, Rapetti, Carta, & Fadda, 2012). Not only was the female more vulnerable to psychological disturbances, but the woman was weak and easily influenced by spirits and supernatural occurrences. It was also believed that women suffered from mental disorders due to being guilty of a sin. Due to these beliefs women were misunderstood and misinterpreted which often led to bias and prejudice points of views and therapies.

Concluding, sociological on mental illness is typically focused on identifying how social organization and processes affect mental health. Plus this orientation has tended to emphasize the impact of social structure, examining in particular the mental health consequences of socioeconomic stratification. However, other research in this tradition has emphasized gender stratification, especially differences in the occurrence of disorder between men and women, unless variation among women according to their social role occupancy.

Men and women are biologically similar in regards to the hormones and chemicals involved with depression. However socially, each gender encounters different social afflictions that can often lead them into depressive states. In this essay, we will explore the common struggles that each gender experiences and how these realities effect their contrasting developments of depression.

In America, 1 in 5 adults or 18.5% of the population suffer from mental illness throughout the course of a year. Of this, the majority of mental health patients are female. Throughout the history of our country, women have been suffering from mental illnesses. Although men suffer from more social anxiety, women tend to suffer from more severe things such as bipolar, schizophrenia and body dysmorphia. These are diseases that not only rot away at one’s brain, but also wear down a body. Subsequently, mental health in women has become a sort of pop culture. In modern society, it is ‘cool’ to have something wrong with you. It makes you interesting, which is not ideal. As a country, we currently have situated ourselves into one of the largest feminist

Women aren’t the only victims of gender based stereotypes and their ties to mental illness. Men have always been held to a certain standard and if they did not reach this standard they are not seen as a “real man”. These hard to achieve standards exist in both a man’s domestic

Recent literature suggests that schizophrenia is linked to an abnormal response of the immune system. Interferon- γ is a cytokine that plays an important role in the regulation of the immune system and acts as a mediator between immune stimulation and the kynurenine pathway, which has also been a major area of interest in schizophrenia. Additionally, previous studies have shown that serum Interferon- γ levels are related to cognitive abilities. The objectives of the present study are to determine if serum cytokines differ in midlife and peri/ post-menopausal women with schizophrenia compared to similarly matched healthy control women and to determine if serum cytokines are correlated with cognitive function differently in these groups.

A mother who struggles with depression post-partum is likely to expose her baby to more harmful effects. Gerhardt (2015) states that the baby of a depressed mother can find it difficult to cope with or get over stress, or they may be more fearful (p. 21). These babies also may respond to others with depression themselves, as their mother may be neglectful in their care (Gerhardt, 2015, p. 36). One of the reasons for this is because of their cortisol levels, which can fluctuate situationally. However, in infants this can affect their development (Gerhardt, 2015, p. 83) as well as their immune system (Gerhardt, 2015, p. 118), and is evidence that a mother with depression can have a significant impact on her child well beyond when the depression occurs. Additionally, Gerhardt (2015) notes that, “When they grow up, these babies of depressed mothers are highly at risk of succumbing to depression themselves.” (p.