O’Connor 1
Annabel O’Connor
Professor Totaro
UNIV 112
April 29, 2015
Negative Stigmas on Women’s Mental Health
When one hears the phrase “mental illness” they automatically assume that the term
refers to psychopaths and sociopaths. Although those illnesses may be part of it, it is not all
encompassing. Mental illness is a much broader spectrum and is made up of more diseases than
psychopathy. The range of these types of diseases is vast: from Tourette’s and schizophrenia, to
narcolepsy. Mental illness can also be subtle, making it difficult to diagnose at times. One of the
most common today is depression, and the groups most associated with depression are women.
From very early on, women have been heavily associated with weakness, making people believe
that their characterized fragility made them prone to developing sickness in the brain. Early
documentations called this hysteria, also called the “woman’s disease.” This so-called
“predisposition” goes hand in hand with gender roles. Women are thought to be more emotional
than men because of their natural ability to express their emotions. This ability stems from both
biological and social structure factors. Research shows that the stigma towards mental illness as
a whole begins at a very young age, and is based on an uninformed foundation. Because of these
reasons, women are unfairly seen as predominantly mentally weak. In turn, this gives the
allusion that women are more likely to have depression or anxiety compared to men and
therefore medicated more.
O’Connor 2
I took the fairness or justice approach because I believe that having and expressing
emotions should not be limited to one gender. Emotions should not be associated with only one
gender; we are all humans who have emotions and expressing them in a healthy manner should
be encouraged. People should not be belittled or looked down upon for these expressions. One
should not be seen as weak for feeling sad or feel ostracized for seeking help. Depression and
anxiety rates would decrease if people became more accepting of others expressing their feelings
and receiving help when needed, instead of associating mental illness with one gender.
It is important to look at the history of women’s mental health first. The earliest recording
of women’s mental health goes all the way back to Ancient Egypt. Although it is no longer
regarded as a disease, hysteria was known as the “women’s disease.” Since women were seen as
to be physically and mentally weaker along with being emotionally unstable, hysteria quickly
became associated with women. It was brought on by two different factors, a scientific factor and
a demonological factor. The scientific factor dealt with the prejudice that women were weakminded, making them more prone to mental illness. In early Egypt and Greece, people believed
that a wandering uterus caused hysteria. Hippocrates believed that women were cold and wet
humans, contrary to a warm and dry male, therefore causing the uterus to get sick. When the
organ became sick, it would then travel to other parts of the body, infecting that new location
like metastasized cancer (Tasca, Rapetti, Carta, Fadda, 2012). Later, during medieval times, the
demonological factor suggested that since women were easily impressed upon mentally,
therefore they could easily become possessed by a demon (Tasca et al., 2012). Hysteria was
treated the same as witchcraft. This normally led to the burning at the stake, torture, and outcasting (Macnalty, 1966).
O’Connor 3
In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) authors of the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders edition III (DSM-III), removed hysteria from the manual
because of westernization and due to the fact that men were also displaying symptoms of such
disease (Tasca et al., 2012). With the ongoing idea that women are weaker minded and
emotionally unstable combined with the lack of knowledge of the mind and psychiatric diseases,
it is easy to see why women have been given such a stereotype and why there is such a negative
stigma to admitting and receiving treatment.
Gender roles are positions that human beings place themselves in during early
development. It’s the idea that blue is a boy color and pink is a girl color, men are strong and
women are weak, or that boys play sports and girls play dolls. These roles are formed at a young
age through observation of one’s surroundings, most predominately the media. They are the
boundaries that one puts themselves in due to social pressures. Gilbert and Scher said that,
“gender role norms also provide guidance for women and men about how they are supposed to
act, think, and feel, as well as constrain women and men from certain behaviors that are ‘off
limits’ (as cited in Mahalik, J., 2005, p. 417). Although these boundaries help with selfidentification, they have also hindered people branching out and have created some very serious
and offensive stereotypes.
One of today’s most prominent stereotype, and one that has been going on for centuries,
is the idea that women are overly emotional. From a biological standpoint, females are emotional
beings, especially compared to males, just from how they process information. Females have a
stronger ability to communicate; this is because there is a stronger connection between both
hemispheres of the brain. The bridge between the left hemisphere, the hemisphere responsible
for problem solving, to the right hemisphere, the hemisphere that analyzes facial cues and tones,
O’Connor 4
is called the corpus callosum. In females, the corpus callosum is thicker which allows for a
stronger connection between both hemispheres, making females better at language and
expression. The ability to vocalize easily aids to the idea that women are overly emotional.
Gender roles say that females are only emotional and irrational, and that males are not emotional
and all rational. These extremes lead to pressures on both sexes to behave and operate in these
expectations. There is this pressure that women have to be super emotional, making them more
susceptible to believing there is something wrong with them.
Along with the biological factor, the social structure has an influence on mental health.
Women have had the role of nurturing and being a homemaker since the beginning of time. This
position deals a lot with emotions because it can have a positive effect on the development of
children. If one was to think back to a very primitive time, men were the ones who went out and
hunted. This position did not allow for much emotion because they had to be brave when killing
animals for food or searching for new land to live on. These everyday jobs created extreme cases
for both genders and it was frowned upon if they ventured outside of these tasks.
Another reason that contributes to the growing number of women with mental illness
compared to men is the negative stigma associated with being diagnosed and receiving treatment.
As a male, certain pressures exist to always be strong, emotionless, and independent. Showing
emotion or not being able to do something on their own is a sign of weakness for males, and has
been for centuries. With this pressure, males tend to have a negative view on being diagnosed
and receiving treatment. A study was done in 2005 to monitor when and at what rate these
stigmas form, along with what factors go into shaping them. The participants in this study were
8th graders, 274 specifically. This age group is a good group to collect data from because they are
at a very impressionable age and are starting to think on their own. Dr. Anita Chandra and Dr.
O’Connor 5
Cynthia Minkovitz, the two doctors to lead this study, had to recreate the adult version of the
Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help (SSRPH) to fit it to a level relatable to these
young teenagers. The new questionnaire was tested on second semester 7th graders and
unqualified 8th graders (Chandra and Minkovitz, 2005).
The results varied, but they were not surprising. The participants were more likely to turn
to a friend (67.2%) than a family member or a counselor for help with a problem (Chandra and
Minkovitz, 2005). However, of the teenagers who did turn to family members, males were more
likely than females (39.1% vs 28.1%) (Chandra and Minkovitz, 2005). Across the board the
participants went to someone they trusted over someone who knew them best or someone who
had been in the situation before. Where it becomes interesting is the knowledge of mental illness
of each gender. Over half of the participants had been exposed to some form of mental illness,
whether it was a character in a movie or book they read, someone they knew, or someone they
helped. Over 42% got the questions wrong, but more boys did than girls. Boys were noted to
have answered the questions with “mental illness is the same as mental retardation” and
“teenagers do not have problem with their mental health” than girls (23.4% vs. 14.0% and 8.7%
vs. 2.3%) (Chandra and Minkovitz, 2005).
It is important to understand why boys answered incorrectly. Why are females more
aware and educated in mental health than males? Boys tested and showed that they had a more
negative stigma to mental health than girls, with 42.1% for boys and 27.1% for high stigma.
They were quoted saying that “going to see a counselor for emotional problems makes people
think you are weird and different” (Chandra and Minkovitz, 2005). Both groups were presented
with a scenario in which a fellow friend named Brian was dealing with a difficult problem, and
then were asked what they would tell Brian. Girls were more likely to promote to go get help,
O’Connor 6
while boys were noted to tell Brian that his problem will pass and that it was not mental health
related.
The effects of a negative stigma and seeing the problem as something that will pass or is
not a big deal, are why boys are not absorbing information being given to them, assuming that
information on mental health and services are being provided at all. When someone does not see
something as important, or hold value to something, they are not going to pay much attention to
it when it occurs. The boys do not see mental health as important or real, they see getting help as
a weakness or something that sets them apart. They are more likely to ignore if it happens to
them meaning they are not going to get help or talk about it.
With the history of women’s mental health, along with the negative stigma that males
have toward mental illness, it is easy to see why women are the targets for pharmaceutical
companies. The thought process behind this advertisement is what Jonathan Metzl calls in his
article “Selling Sanity Through Gender: The Psychodynamics of Psychotropic Advertisement,”
the transitive property. Pharmaceutical companies create anxiety through the advertisements to
drive sales; “while many advertisements seek a direct correlation between points a and c, if a is
the viewer and c is the product, pharmaceutical advertisements must account for, and indeed
appeal to, an intermediate point b along the way” (Metzl, 2003). A 1960’s ad for Deprol, which
treated depression, depicts a woman sitting in a doctor’s office ridden with anxiety. On the wall
hangs the doctor’s diploma, which paired with his white coat, gives the viewer the idea that he is
the dominant figure in this scenario. On the depressed, anxious patient’s finger is a wedding ring.
The most efficient, and effective, way to target their female customers is to take relationship
side, specifically marriage, because it symbolizes the norms of society, “a wedding ring, and
specifically a wedding ring on a middle-aged woman, might have been thought to imply
O’Connor 7
normatively, stability, and adherence to the social mores of civilization (Metzl, 2003). However,
the problem with this ring in this ad is that it suggests that marriage causes mental illness and
that society caused the sickness on the woman (Metzl, 2003). With women as the focus in antidepression and anxiety advertisements, society starts to associate mental illness with women and
women subconsciously accept this idea.
Some people may believe that women are dramatizing all of their emotions and mental
health problems. The idea is that women are too hormonal; their hormones fluctuate too
regularly for them to have a stable thought that is not exaggerated. But this cannot be true
because men can also be diagnosed with depression or anxiety. The number may be smaller than
women, but this could be due to the fact, as seen in the studied discussed above, that males are
less likely to acknowledge mental illness as a legitimate health concern or are not as inclined to
reach out for help.
This problem needs to be fixed because both genders should be able to express how they
feel without thinking that they are seen as weak. Expressing emotions should not be considered a
sign of weakness or should always be associated with women, and males should not be called
feminine because they are more in touch with their feelings. The stigma for mental illness would
be reduced if education on depression and anxiety were taught correctly at a young age before
the stigma develops. If children were taught how to seek help and how to correctly express
themselves, the rate of depression and anxiety would drop. It would also take women out of the
light that makes it seem like they are the only ones that have these diseases because more people
would be open about it, making the overall health in this country better.
O’Connor 8
Reference Page
Chandra, A., & Minkovitz, C. (2005). Stigma Starts Early: Gender Differences In Teen
Willingness To Use Mental Health Services. Journal of Adolescent Health, 754.e1
754.e8.
Gardner, P. M. (2007). Re-gendering depression: Risk, web health campaigns, and the
feminized pharmaco-subject. Canadian Journal of Communication, 32(3), 537-555.
Gilbert, L. A., & Scher, M. (1999). Gender and sex in counseling and psychotherapy. Needham
Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Macnatly, A. (1966). A History of Hysteria. Nature, 210, 66-67.
Mahalik, J., Morray, E., Coonerty-Femiano, A., Ludlow, L., Slattery, S., & Smiler, A. (2005).
Development Of The Conformity To Feminine Norms Inventory. Sex Roles, 52(7-8),
417-435. doi:10.1007/s11199-005-3709-7
Metzl, Jonathan M.; (2003). "Selling Sanity Through Gender: The Psychodynamics of
Psychotropic Advertising." Journal of Medical Humanities 24 (1-2): 79-103.
Tasca, C., Rapetti, M., Carta, M. G., & Fadda, B. (2012). Women And Hysteria In The History
Of Mental Health. Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health : CP & EMH, 8,
110 119. doi:10.2174/1745017901208010110