In honor of mental health month, I wanted to spend some time
explaining how mental health advocacy has evolved to be an integral component
of my feminist practice.
The Personal
When I was in college, anyone who met me knew that I lived
and breathed feminism. Most of my jobs and volunteer commitments were related
to social justice and violence prevention, I taught Women’s Studies in graduate
school, and I was a vocal advocate for change. Post-grad, I have continued
carrying the feminist flag but have found new depth and complexity in both my
approach and my expression of feminism. I have worked in two very different organizations,
an LGBTQ youth center and an innovative suicide prevention organization, both
of which have allowed me to practice feminism in very different ways. I have
also grown personally, and my feminism has grown with me.
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| Photo Credit: Google Images |
I have always believed that all oppression is deeply
connected and that justice and liberation are processes that evolve over time
as we learn to honor identities while untangling the webs of inequity that have
held them in place. Because of this, all social justice work has been connected
to feminism for me. This approach to feminism made it difficult for me to focus
my passion on one path, and simultaneously opened doors for me to merge
approaches to the work across fields.
One of the things that initially attracted me to the Carson
J Spencer Foundation was the social justice lens through which we view our work.
CJSF has provided me with a fecund landscape for me to explore just how
personal the political can be. As a suicide attempt survivor and survivor of
suicide loss, I spent quite a bit of time in my life trying to move on or move
past these pivotal experiences. At CJSF, I was able to really develop my
survivorship into something healthy and powerful. Here, being a survivor can be
a part of my practice and my life, not something I try to tuck on a shelf or
hide away. In fact, my deeply personal journey out of the darkness makes me
uniquely qualified to do what I do. I get to live the New York Radical
Feminist’s slogan, “the personal is political,” every day.
The experience of mental wellness, mental health conditions,
and mental health stigma cannot be divested from our identities as gendered
beings. When we look at the landscape of mental health, we cannot ignore the
gendered nature of its impact. The available data on mental health can give us
a snapshot of the reasons that mental health and recovery justice should be a
part of feminist practice.
The Political
Before diving into the data,
I think it is important to address that I am looking at information without the intersecting identities of sexual orientation, race, and socioeconomic
status (SES). It is important to note that when it comes to accessing care or
being able to access care white, straight high SES women make up the majority
of the women who can and do get psychiatric care, and I am a part of that
population. I am also limiting the discussion to “men” and “women,” not because
I do not recognize the great diversity for gender identities, but because data
is not collected in a way that adequately or accurately represents gender
identities beyond the binary.
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| Photo Credit: Google Images |
Being a woman is a
significant predictor of being prescribed psychiatric drugs—25% of U.S. women
take them. This could be because women
are more likely to seek help when they experience distress—although they go to their
primary care providers for this help—because they experience distress more
frequently than men, or because femininity has been pathologized. Likely, it is
a combination of all three. On the surface, it may seem positive that women are
accessing medication. But when we peek underneath the surface, we find that
this may actually be concerning. Despite being more likely to access care from
physicians and being prescribed more medication, women are much less likely to
seek specialist or inpatient care. They are also attempting suicide at four
times the rate of men. This means that the care and medication that women are
getting is not working for them—women are still acting on their suicidal intensity
more commonly than men.
There are many mental health conditions that
disproportionately affect women, and at least a portion of their root causes
stem from social factors like discrimination, disempowerment, and trauma.
Depression is the most common women’s mental health problem in the world,
accounting for 42% of disability from neuropsychiatric disorders (WHO). On a more local level, over 40% of
Colorado women report experiencing poor mental health (SHF). Women in the U.S. are twice as likely as
men to have a panic disorder, general anxiety, and specific phobias (NAMI). We are less likely to experience a
traumatic event in our lifetime—about half do—but are twice as likely as men to
develop PTSD following a traumatic event. The most common types of trauma women
experience are sexual assault or domestic violence (National Center for PTSD). These types of
trauma disproportionately affect women and are part of systemic oppression of
women. One of the direct results of experiencing these traumas is propensity
for developing a mental health condition.
A specific condition that is often connected with
experiencing trauma is Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). BPD is one of the
most stigmatized mental health conditions, both inside and outside the mental
health field. Almost 75% of people diagnosed with BPD are women, despite recent
research that suggests that men are likely almost as frequently affected by the
condition (NAMI). This could be connected to a greater
willingness on the part of providers to consider women’s behavior pathological.
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| Photo Credit: Flickr user www.CPaigePhotography.com |
Eating disorders are perhaps some
of the best examples of cultural influences creating mental health
conditions. Not only is disordered
eating blatantly encouraged by $60 billion per year diet industry, it is glamorized
by the pro-ana/mia movement. Anorexia is the most lethal mental health
condition, with a 10% mortality rate. This mortality rate is 12 times higher
than the death rate of all other causes of death for females 15-24 years old. Women
account for 90% of the people experiencing eating disorders (ANAD).
Risk factors for women include gender-based
violence, socioeconomic disadvantage, low income and income inequality, low or
subordinate social status and rank, and unremitting responsibility for the care
of others (WHO). Women experience these risk factors not because of
their biology but because of the systematic oppression they face.
Hypersexualization and the pervasive cultural belief that women can be
controlled through violence exposes women to particular trauma. Being raised to
believe that one’s identity as a woman depends always on others, especially
men, can lead to codependency and create socioeconomic barriers to accessing
care. Of the 50 million people affected by violent conflicts, natural disaster,
and displacement, 80% are women and children. Depression, anxiety, distress, and sexual and domestic
violence affect more women than men transnationally and cross culturally.
Minority
stress—the distress created by discrimination and the roles women occupy in our
societies, and the resulting poverty, malnutrition, overwork, and trauma—contributes
significantly to women's
poor mental health. The more severe and pervasive the factors of minority
stress, the poorer women’s mental health becomes. The likelihood that women
will face life events that cause feelings of loss, inferiority, humiliation, or
entrapment explains their high rates of depression. Low rank is a
powerful predictor of depression. Women's subordination is reinforced in the home
and the workplace; they are often corralled into low status positions with
little decision making ability or upward mobility. Traditional gender roles reinforce
submission and dependence, maintaining women’s responsibility for the vast
majority of domestic labor, care of children and the elderly, and other unpaid
and undervalued labor.
If it has not become obvious yet, this is where the role of
feminism becomes paramount in mental health advocacy: improving the social
status of women will have positive implications for their mental health. This
is true on a global, local, and individual scale. It may also be true that
improving the mental health of women will have a positive impact on the status
of women.
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| Photo Credit: Google Images |
Back to the Personal
Feminism has been an integral part of recovery for me. Being
able to see myself as part of a group of people who were strong and capable
made me feel strong and capable. My struggle was not just my struggle, it was a
part of a larger search for justice and equity. Being a survivor is a feminist
political act. We have lived in the darkest parts of our minds, the parts
created by an unjust world, and found our way out. Survivorship for me is integral
to my feminism. It is how I see myself reflected in the movement. I am as much
a survivor of my suicide attempt as I am a survivor of the conditions that created
my vulnerability. Being a survivor of “womanhood,” however that might manifest
itself, can be a uniting force for women in the movement.
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Jess Stohlmann Rainey is CJSF's Senior Program Director. Prior to coming to CJSF, Jess was a youth worker and advocate for five years, and previously managed sexual assault and domestic violence advocacy and LGBT youth center programs. Her work focused on skill and leadership development to improve the life skills of underrepresented groups as well as advocating for policy and cultural change within political and educational institutions. Jess has presented nationally at conferences on topics of youth engagement, leadership, gender, sexuality and violence prevention strategies.
She holds a B.A. in English, Women’s Studies and Cultural Studies from the University of Northern Colorado, and an unconferred M.A. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies.
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