Mental Health Research Findings

The data presented raises a good number of questions regarding gender differences and mental health. Among these are the issues of to what degree males or females are more likely to seek help concerning mental illness, and to what degree males or females are more likely to seek help for symptoms of depression. The evidence indicates that women are more likely to seek help in both scenarios. However, the same set of statistical data also indicates a much wider variation among males than among females concerning the degree to which they would personally be willing to seek help with mental health issues. Why would women be more likely to seek help for depression or mental health disorders? Why would men fluctuate to a greater degree concerning the probability they would seek help?

Women and Mental Health

It is not surprising that women would be more likely to seek assistance for mental illness or symptoms of depression given that studies indicate women are generally more susceptible to both when compared with their male counterparts. A study published by Oxford University in 2013 reviewed the relationship between gender and mental illness in the United States, England, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. The results of the study indicated that women are sixty percent more likely to develop anxiety disorders and seventy-five percent more likely to suffer from severe depression. Overall, women are more than forty percent more likely than men to develop serious mental health problems. While males certainly are not immune to mental illness, it is clear that women are more likely to suffer from such afflictions as conventionally defined (Ball, 2013).  However, men were found to be considerably more likely to have problems with the abuse of alcohol or drugs. The study also found little difference between the genders with regards to other mental health issues such as schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. 

The question of why women in modern Western societies appear to be more susceptible to mental illness is not an easy one to answer. The first question that has to be asked, of course, is the matter of to what degree these findings are accurate. Anxiety and depression, for instance, are emotions that carry with them certain social stigmas and gender role expectations (Wirth & Bodenhausen, 2009). It is generally perceived of as being more socially acceptable for a woman to confess to struggling with serious emotional difficulty. The wider culture finds it more acceptable for women to engage in intense expressions of emotion. Indeed, a sexist stereotype that continues to exist is that women are simply overly emotional creatures. 

Sexist though this outlook may be, it provides women with a certain safety valve regarding the possibility of seeking help for mental health problems. A male who sought help for anxiety or depression would be less likely to be regarded charitably. A gender role expectation that continues to persist is that males do not engage in overt displays of emotion. A man may well feel uncomfortable seeking assistance for emotional issues. He may fear that he will be thought of as lacking masculinity. Women also suffer to a greater degree than men from social circumstances that take a toll on their mental health. Statistics continue to show that the wages paid to female workers fall behind those paid to men for comparable work. Women are more likely to experience institutional discrimination in the professions and in the workplace. Women are also more likely to be victims of domestic violence and of sexually-motivated violent crime. Women are also more likely than men to be head of a single parent household. All of these factors and others impact the mental health of women. 

Men and Mental Health

The data presented and the Oxford study cited above likewise suggest some rather interesting questions regarding male mental health. It has been suggested that incidents of male mental health disorders may go unreported due to the social stigma involved. Mental disorders among males may well be treated with less frequency, thereby creating the impression that mental health issues primarily plague women. This suspicion is supported by the fact that males report having experienced substance abuse problems to a much greater degree than women. However, substance abuse among males is not particularly socially unacceptable, and the perception of being a substance abuser is not one that is regarded as being in conflict with established male gender roles. Indeed, men who many ways symbolize an ethos of machismo may still possess a public image of being substance abusers and yet retain their identities as a strong male figure (Hughes, 2011). But a man who expresses anxiety, depression, or some other such mental health ailment will be viewed as taking on feminine traits.

The higher rates of substance abuse among African American males might also be potentially accounted for in other ways. It may be that males are in fact more inclined towards reckless or aggressive lifestyles than women, and this could in turn lead to a greater propensity for the abuse of drugs and alcohol among men. Men may also vary more widely in the nature of their emotional lives. It may be more difficult for males to maintain a sense of psychological balance than women. Therefore, males may tend to experience psychological extremes with greater frequency. If this is indeed true, it would account for the greater standard deviation among males regarding the probability with which they would be likely to seek help for issues of emotional disorders or symptoms of depression. 

Yet another possibility is that males may defy gender role stereotypes with greater frequency. The expected norms regarding the relationship of males and females to their emotional lives include the expectation that women will be more emotional, less driven by logic and reason, and by extension more susceptible to mental illness (Simon, 1995). The reverse of this expectation is that males will be levelheaded, rational, and less driven by intensity of emotion. The fact that women are much more likely to report experiencing mental health conditions that conform to conventional gender role expectations may indicate greater conformity to generalized gender role expectations on the part of women. This greater conformity by women regarding mental health stereotypes may in and of itself be an indication of the greater social disadvantage experienced by women, and hence, the greater amount of social pressure to conform to such stereotypes. 

Clearly, there are a number of important areas in which further research needs to be done. Much more study is needed concerning the relationship between gender roles and mental health. More analysis is also required concerning the question of to what degree male and female interview subjects and survey respondents are likely to answer survey questions based on gender role expectations. Yet another possible area for future research would be to examine the apparent greater variation in terms of overall quality of mental health among males when compared to females, and the impact of socially constructed gender role expectations on these statistical variations. Such research would allow for still greater exploration of the degree to which the social, psychological, and physiological aspects of the make up of the individual human being interact.

References

Ball, J. (2013). Women 40% more likely than men to develop mental illness, study finds. The Guardian, Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/22/women-men-mental-illness-study

Hughes, J. E. (2011). Traditional male gender roles can hinder good mental health. Phoenix Forward Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.phoenix.edu/forward/perspectives/2011/12/traditional-male-gender-roles-can-hinder-good-mental-health.html

Simon, R. W. (1995). Gender, multiple roles, role meaning, and mental health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 36 (6), 182-194. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2137224?uid=3739936&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102668832527

Wirth, J. H., Bodenhausen, G.V. (2009). The role of gender in mental illness stigma: A national experiment [PDF]. Psychological Science 111 (1), 1-6. Retrieved from http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/bodenhausen/WBPS09.pdf