Mental Disorders and Gender

I really enjoyed the two presentations on mental disorders and gender. It was interesting to see the differences between men and women in respect to the disorders they get and their associated treatments.

First, I learned that the word hysteria is from the word hystera, which is Greek for uterus. The uterus was originally believed to be a separate entity within the female body that caused sickness (hysteria) if not satisfied. Women had to satisfy their uterus by engaging in sexual relations or by having kids. The evolution of the "cures" for hysteria is as follows: marriage -> marital sex -> manual stimulation -> vibrator. I love how the vibrator evolved to "cure" hysteria!

Our gendered ideas of disorders are as follows: depression (female), eating disorders (female), alcoholism (male), ADHD (male). Surprisingly, all these stereotypes are true, except ADHD occurs equally in both sexes. It is suggested that eating disorders are under-diagnosed in men, because obsessiveness over obtaining a big body can be form of an eating disorder. Often times male stresses are caused due to stresses at work as well as the stresses of having power. Women, on the other hand, have more home-related stresses, as well as stresses due to lack of power. I was surprised when Celia said that out of married men, single men, married women, and single women, married men are the most happy while married women are the least happy. Married women have the most stresses, because they have to uphold the image of a good wife and mother in addition to working outside of the household. There have been some biological factors found which make people more prone to different mental disorders. This leaves the question, are mental disorders social, biological or both??

In respect to treatment, both men and women prefer to have female therapists. I found this very interesting. While recovery is generally equally successful, women are expected to have less strength in recovering than men. Mental health drugs have medically been tested a lot more on men than on women. 8% medical studies center on women while 80% focus on men.

One comment I found interesting about anorexia is that one definition of anorexia is loosing 15% of your body weight. What if an obese woman weighing 200 pounds decides to loose weight. She would most likely be safe loosing 25 pounds without being considered anorexic. I do not like this particular definition of anorexia.

In conclusion, I found the mental health presentations to be extremely interesting. Mental health in relation to gender is definitely a topic I would want to do further research on.