Depression: a feminist issue?

Dittany, I suppose it's just the general message that we all get, it's a man's world and if you're going to make it, you're going to have to toughen up. It's difficult not to think I should've been tougher somehow, that I should have sorted it out myself.

It isn't true though, is it? Working as hard as a man just isn't going to cut it. And that's before you take into account all of the other stuff women have got going on.

My boss said to me once that "having children shouldn't interfere with your work anymore than a hobby, like a game of golf". It wasn't directed at me, as I didn't have children at that point, but it demonstrates beautifully just what the women in the office were up against.

This was a multi national company, the top of it's field.

I do know what you're saying SSM. When it all happened I really felt like I was helpless to what happened. Tbh, I'm still not sure today what I should have done differently.

The point I wanted I was trying to make, before all of these memories came crashing back in, is that, as a woman, I think we are more likely to experience this type of attitude in our everyday lives and that our conditioning from childhood makes us less equipped to effectively deal with it.

My solution was to work harder and harder, to try and prove myself. It slowly ate away at my confidence as nothing I did was ever good enough to be accepted as an equal.

No more so, or less so, than the "epidemic" of depression in men.

I didn't Molesworth. The office closed down and everyone was made redundant, including me, whilst I was still off work with depression.

At the time, I was pleased, I'd been there 20 years and got a great payout, but it has meant I've never had a chance to face up to what happened.

"I guess it's unfair to blame them entirely"

No, it's not! They were bullying you. The fact that you didn't attempt to stop it sooner does not make it your fault in any way whatsoever.

Oh Molesworth, trying to goad me was a favourite pastime. They would deliberately slag off the other succesful women in the office, how they were ugly, fat, had a screw loose etc, in order to get a rise out of me. I would turn up to management meetings and be asked to go and make the tea, in total seriousness.

It was a pretty effective technique really. I started off as a fairly vociferous feminist. By the time I went on sick leave with stress/depression, I had no confidence in myself or my ability to do my job.

I remember one day breaking down and crying in front of my boss. He refused to let me leave his office and made me sit there whilst I struggled to pull myself together.

I guess it's unfair to blame them entirely, I know I should have sought help and support before I let it get to that stage. Like others have said, I struggled to face up to what was happening or accept that I couldn't cope.

It was told by a lovely counsellor that depression is often related to unexpressed anger.

At the that time I worked in a very sexist and male dominated environment and was frequently in conflict with my male colleagues. I stood out because I challenged their attitudes and I was openly nicknamed 'Millie Tant'. My sex life was constantly under scrutiny, I was told 'no man would put up with me' and my friends were questioned as to whether or not I was gay.

I've just realised, writing this, how horrific that sounds.

Molesworth, I think you're right. Although CBT has helped to learn to live with myself and like myself, I've also now accepted full responsibility for my depression. It's only writing this all out again that I've realised that I had every right to be angry. I might be doing okay now, but the world is still a shitty place full of injustice.

Sorry for the long post, I wasn't expecting all of this to come out.

"Anyone else feel that the 'epidemic' of depression and anxiety among women is a rational response to the circumstances in which we live?"

Yes - in particular the "expectations" of women both from ourselves/from others and from society.

I've been very interested in the arguments in this section about our "choices" being framed within the limitations/perceived-limitations of our society and our upbringing.

It is so easy to think that your views on a topic are really your views rather than that caused by years of exposure to certain views.

The part of the guardian article which most rings true for me is:

"You have to let things slide. "Most girls are still brought up to be very good," she says, "and a good person is somebody who always feels that they can do better. We're brought up on the principle that if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well. And actually, what women need to learn is that if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing badly ? as long as you get it done. If you look around at the people who seem to cope with all that they've got to do, you'll see how women skimp things ? saying, 'We'll have something out of the freezer tonight for dinner' for instance. You need to distinguish very clearly between what's essential to do properly, and what isn't essential. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't need doing."

I think that this perfectionism is a problem for a lot of women including me.

I do try to have a mantra of "if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing badly ? as long as you get it done" - I follow the Flylady program and she taught me that. (Now I am sure that many will think that Flylady is anti-feminist but in allowing me to re-frame my expectations and conditioning around housework it has been very liberating for me.)

I noticed that Xenia said something about not being a perfectionist -

"Also someone who interviewed me once said every other woman like I am she had interviewed in the series had had this one characteristic - they could accept a good enough job rather than being a total perfectionist. They could look at the children scruffy in the garden and think that's fine I can accept it or leave the office at 6.30 and think I've done enough, a good job. Much harder if your personality is perfectionist."

I am wondering how this perfectionism would manifest itself more now in the current times - I am thinking media/capitalism etc? Also the fast pace of life - too much technology and not enough outdoors "feeds" my ADD characteristics.

I am also wondering whether places like MN which seem to give women the chance to be much more open than in RL can be of great advantage to us in finding that there are always others who feel the same/ have the same circumstances. In RL you can be very very isolated.

don't women make more unsuccessful attempts and men succeed more? I read that it's partly due to men being more likely to have access to more effective means (guns in so many cases).

"Perhaps women are more likely to go to
doctors & get a diagnosis?"

Absolutely completely agree. Note that the suicide rate is higher among men.

no no - I said it, not him.
That would indeed have been out of order if he had said that, good grief it would!

Spot on, dittany.

Women are conditioned not to express anger, and I think often it is not even acknowledged that women DO have anger. It is a massive taboo and seen as unfeminine, even unnatural. Think of all the nasty names we apply to angry women: battle-axe, harridan, shrew, fishwife etc etc. (Actually, I have appropriated battle-axe as a positive word and now (in remission from depression) am proud to call myself one. I had a lot to be angry about.)

Depression is a gender issue, and a class issue. What it isn't is a new issue. Talking to my grandmother and great-aunts over the years it was always clear this stuff isn't new, it is just that it was simply never spoken of before (except privately by groups of women, and even then only in the context of stoicism and resignation).

The whole reality of those feelings was denied (as it often still is for working class women in particular) because acknowledging it would require acknowledging womens' rights to self-determination, autonomy, equal value and equal status.

I also agree with Seth. That's why reducing feminism to no more than 'choice' (how sick I am of the disingenuous politics of choice) as so many women do, is so dangerous.

"So, are women more inclined to direct their anger at themselves rather than external factors"

I think we're conditioned to blame ourselves for everything.

X-posts, Dittany. You said it much more eloquently.

No, I really think it is because post-dc it is often the woman at home. Dh would hate to be stuck at home to the detriment of his career.

(I am happy not working on ML btw).

'Chemical imbalance' as a catch all is overplayed imo.