Gender and Mental Illness

Research provides evidence of a distinctive gendered landscape of mental illness, with women and men differing in the types of disorder they commonly experience ? a landscape that is not specific to Western societies. While there are no marked gender differences in the rates of psychoses like schizophrenia or in dementia, women have higher levels of affective disorders, such as depression, and of anxiety disorders, and men have higher levels of substance abuse and conduct disorders. Consequently the observed gender difference in overall levels of mental illness depends on what disorders are included in the measure. The gendered patterning of mental disorders is now usually linked to differences between women and men in gender-related tendencies to internalize or externalize their feelings, women more often internalizing their feelings and men more often externalizing them. While such differences may be influenced by genetic factors, they also relate to the socialization of women and men in childhood ? a gender socialization that is linked to the expectations of what is required of them in adult life. Further differences in women's and men's social situations also have a direct impact on the gender-related expression of feelings in the face of life events and difficulties.