Time to change lense about women & mental health

By Dr Anupama Gadkari
In India, roughly 7.5 % of women suffer from severe mental health conditions and nearly half of adult females are affected from a less serious mental health issue once in a lifetime. With this high prevalence and sizable number of young female population, women’s mental health is a huge concern.
Discussion about mental health often revolves around anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses and rightfully so. However, the concept of mental health is much bigger, multifaceted and complex. Historically, the approach towards women’s mental health was rooted in their bodies and biology and thus biological disturbance was seen as the primary reason for emotional turmoil.
Research in the last decade however shows that along with biological factors and vulnerabilities, we carefully need to focus on the psyche and psychological processes like thinking, emotions, feelings, experiences, cultural conditioning, stress and psycho-social stress faced by women for understanding their mental health.
Psychosocial stressers are a dominant part of the mental health discourse more so for women. The pressure of ‘looking a particular way..’ — slim, fair, attractive, family friendly, good cook, career-oriented but ready to give up whenever needed by family wants, insta worthy, techsavvy etc, etc. The endless list and compulsion to fit in this list and mould could be very devastating.
Negative life experiences like gender discrimination, malnutrition, over work, domestic violence and abuse significantly increase the risk of mental illnesses. Due to the stigma attached to abuse, a majority of women do not speak out about domestic violence and abuse. Besides, most of the time the perpetrators are close and known people making situations more complicated. Thus these experiences have a significant bearing on women’s mental.
The high prevalence of psychosomatic disorders in females again points out the lack of avenues for open and healthy discussions. The fear of being ridiculed and being judged often compel women to live with tremendous stress leading to psychosomatic disorders.
If work places are not women friendly with protective mechanisms like child care facilities, counselling services and harassment redressal committee in place then it may end up being one more stresser for working women. The environment and culture at the work place is significant for working women’s mental wellbeing. Flexibility, work from home and motherhood support will go a long way in making our work places healthy and comfortable for women.
(The author is a psychologist and psychotherapist)