How might the relationship between depression and gender have been exaggerated?

The other side of the argument being the sex role differences enforced by society, seems to be a more plausible version but not without its own critiques. Some sociologists believe that sexual discrimination both in the workplace and at home can lead to women feeling like they are being prevented from achieving what they are more than capable of. They may feel constantly in control by the opposite sex and this undoubtedly may lead to feelings of depression. The socially accepted role of a woman as a wife means that the woman has to change many things in her life in order to fulfill this role properly, for example, she may have to give up her career in order to have children, even having children is a big enough change in itself to the lifestyle of many women. They may have to change their current employment in order to fit around the children and the husband, while it is very rare for men to have to make these changes surrounding children. Carmen, Russo and Miller (1981) suggest women’s personality roles that they have to adjust to be a ‘good wife’ such as being passive, submissive and inhibited are not fulfilling traits so they may in themselves lead to psychological dysfunction. Gove also suggests that marriage is not as satisfying for women as it is for men due to the lack of options women have. For example, if women are not happy in their home and as wife and mother there is no other path for her to take, nothing to fall back on, whereas men have two clear things for them to concentrate one; their career and then their home, so if one is making them unhappy they have the other to keep them stable. This idea comes across as quite outdated in this day and age because women generally have a career as well as a home to keep and some women are in part time education (as are some men) so in actual fact it would seem that women have more to do to keep them occupied as men generally do not have as much to do with child rearing as women do.

        Looking at the argument from a more social side it could be said that women are in general more able to talk about their feelings and not see this as a bad thing, they are also more likely to normalize depressive feelings and symptoms as just a ‘woman thing’ as most women do find it easy to talk to people about their problems and easy to let their emotions out successfully, i.e. crying may be seen as a positive outlet of stressful emotions and a lot of women do feel slightly better when they have ‘a good cry’. However, men see crying and showing emotions as a sign of weakness due to how they have been socialized into their gender roles. Men seem to take out their negative feelings in other destructive patterns of behaviour such as alcohol, drugs, gambling and violence or aggression. This may be one crucial factor in the exaggeration of women as the main sufferers of depression because it may not be the case that men do not suffer from it; it may just be that the symptoms for men and women express themselves in different ways. This leads to the argument of Braverman et al (1970) who proposes that mental health clinicians are more likely to assess stereotypical feminine behaviours as that of someone who suffers from a mental illness. Studies have shown that the symptoms of depression and some other mental disorders are much more similar to the traits of a typical female than that of male personality traits.

A classic study by Brown & Harris (1978) assessed 400 women living in Camberwell, South London. They discovered that 42% of the working class females interviewed showed signs of being clinically depressed, compared to only 5% of middle class women. They suggested that there are three main determinants of depression for women: lack of an intimate relationship with a partner, three or more children under the age of fourteen and the early loss of a mother (woman being under 12 when mother passed away. These three factors are very important in highlighting the vast difference between the percentages of middle class women that are depressed compared to the working class women. It is already well known that class affects life span so this may affect the third factor (the loss of the mother) but the class difference may also mean that middle class women have help with child rearing and housework so they do not feel under so much pressure. They may also have an advantage in that they do not have the worry of money so much as their in comes will be higher than that of the middle class. Another factor in this supposed exaggeration is that women generally visit the doctor more often than men for the sake of their children so the doctor may pick up on some of the signs of depression there. Men generally do not go to the doctors as much so there may be a mis-interpretation in the statistical findings due to that factor.

From a feminist perspective it may be suggested that women are in a ‘catch 22’ situation as conforming to the norms that society constructs about being a woman may be seen as leading to psychological abnormality, however, rebelling against the conformist point of view and acting in such a way as to be seen as anti-feminine may also lead to the same result so it seems that it is very hard to maintain a healthy balance. Women seem to become vehicles of depression; their husbands are able to take out their negative feelings on them but there may not be a balanced reciprocity throughout the relationship as women are not seen as aggressive and although it is not completely absent, there are much fewer cases of domestic violence where men are the victims. So this may be indicative of how men release their tension and how this may contribute to women’s feelings of depression and being controlled.

Another social factor contributing to the above is the vulnerability that women more so than men may encounter throughout their lives. As with all of these arguments it is not impossible for men to go through the same feelings and experiences (except menopause and childbirth obviously) but women are disadvantaged through their roles that they are socialized into. More women than men have the worry of economic dependence on their spouse so if the husband is out of work studies have shown that this puts more pressure on the woman than it would if the roles were reversed and the wife was out of work. Also women have to deal with familial caring responsibilities, may experience social isolation because their lives do not revolve around themselves, it revolves around their children, their home and their partner. It is a well known fact that women suffer physical and sexual abuse more so than men so they also have that to deal with if that has been the case in their lives, and it might be helpful to take into account that rape within the marriage was not seen as a criminal or wrong act until 1991 so this may have been a causal factor for many women before that date. Physical appearance is another factor that women have to contend with more so than men (although male vanity may be on the increase) in order to conform to society and with the media putting pressure on women to look their best may also put a huge strain on a women when she does not feel very attractive after looking after three children and doing the housework all day.

In order to balance the argument it is crucial to consider how men deal with their problems because it would absurd to suggest that men do not have any stress in their lives. As mentioned earlier, almost all of the other social deviances like drugs and alcoholism are male-dominated which suggests that men do find it hard to deal with life experiences; as many of these forms of self-destructing behaviour are forms of escapism. Men have to deal with the pressure put on them to provide for their families for example, if they are working class it is very hard to earn a good wage doing an unskilled manual job. It is essential to have some qualifications or even extensive experience in a trade of some sort, but from doing my own research and talking to people it may be possible that boys feel more pressure from an early age than girls. It has been proven that girls excel at school leaving boys of their own age behind, so this may be the starting point for men to feel inadequate. With the increase in balanced conjugal roles and workload, men may feel under-valued since their wives are capable of earning a good living and being the ‘breadwinner’ in what remains to be a patriarchal society.

The point made earlier about men taking more drugs and alcohol, also part-taking in violent or aggressive acts is one of the main indicators that men in fact are depressed but express it in a different way. Even if they were not depressed before prolonged use of alcohol and most drugs creates a depressive mood for the user. So that in isolation may be a reason for the male depression and the fact that there are many more men in prison than there are women. This indicates that men are more inclined to turn to crime when things do go wrong for them; this may be another example of men or boys feeling under pressure to provide for their family; if they cannot do it legally due to lack of opportunity or education then they need to find their money from somewhere else. The main point to gather from this discussion of what men go through is that men do feel down, they do go through depressive stages but they do not feel comfortable talking about it until it may be too late. A major example of this is the staggering difference in suicide rates for men and women. It may be suggested that because men do not deal with their problems whereas women talk about them more often, this may cause the high level of suicides for men; it is an end to all the pain and hurt for both themselves and their families.

Overall, the statistics seem to be a key problem in trying to figure out the gender difference in depression. There are many inconsistencies in the way depression is diagnosed, i.e. it largely depends on what clinician diagnoses the depression and from what scale they use to do their diagnosis so in one country and under one doctors’ surgery one may be classed as clinically depressed, whereas somewhere else under someone else’s authority you will be a normal, healthy individual. I think we have to be careful in the future to make sure that this mental illness does not become one of those that are mostly seen to affect women; like anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, we need to understand that men are under pressure in their every day lives and are also deeply affected by the loss of a loved one just as anyone should be. It might be an idea to encourage talking about emotions from a young age in boys so they so they do not feel that crying is a sign of weakness. If this is implemented then both women and men may be able to deal with their problems together, and men any not turn to such self - destructive behaviours; they may instead seek help for their depression from a professional. So overall, it seems that the difference between men and women regarding depression is not so much exaggerated, it is just misunderstood in terms of the symptoms being very different, if we tackle that problem then we may improve the treatment of depression overall.