In every mind, women have more chances to suffer from mental illness. Hence, discuss the notion of normativity within the issue of mental health care

Résumé du document

In all societies, women have always been perceived as, physically but also mentally weaker than men. For a very long period, and even today in some parts of the world, women have not been considered as rational as men, but were rather seen as a "permanently subversive force within the political order". Men were the reason, women the passion. Thus in order to break women's unstable image, many feminists have worked on the "mind/body" distinction of Descartes. Their aim was to explain to people that women were as capable as men, and that they had the same intellectual and mental capacities, as well as the same abilities than their male counterparts. In other words, they wanted to prove that the mind had no sex and that the body was only a transport system. Yet, when it comes to mental healthcare, statistics show that women have more chances to suffer from mental illness.

Extraits

[...] Gardiner. «Can Ms. Prozac Talk Back ? Feminism, Drugs, and Social Constructionism,” Feminist Studies, (1995), 21:501-517. Ibid. Foster, Industry Ibid Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Dell, 1974), p.330. Chester, Madness Agnes Miles, Women and Mental Illness, (Brighton, Wheatsheaf Books, 1988), p.47. Ussher, Psychology Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), p.284. Ussher, Psychology Susan Bordo, Unbearable weight : feminism, Western culture, and the body, (London: University of California Press, 1993), p.33. [...]

[...] In other words, a female suffering from anorexia will always thinks that she is fat whereas she is not. She is of contact with reality.”[40] However, anorexia is not the only existing kind of eating disorder. Women are also very often victim of bulimia nervosa which is characterised by a compulsive over-eating and an “excessive preoccupation with the control of body weight.”[41] The patient suffering from this syndrome adopts extreme measures so as to mitigate fattening effects of ingested food”.[42] Thus, women have a special relation with food. [...]

[...] In every mind, women have more chances to suffer from mental illness. Hence, discuss the notion of normativity within the issue of mental healthcare In all societies, women have always been perceived as, physically but also mentally weaker than men.[1] For a very long period, and even today in some parts of the world, women have not been considered as rational as men, but were rather seen as a “permanently subversive force within the political order”.[2] Men were the reason, women the passion. [...]

[...] Jane Ussher, Women's Madness: misogyny or mental illness? (London: Harvester, 1991), p.69. Foster, Industry Barbara Ehrenreich, and Deirdre English, For Her Own Good: 150 Years pf the Expert's Advice to Women, (New York: Anchor Press, 1979), p.92. Jane Ussher, The Psychology of the Female Body, (London: Routledge, 1989), p.1. Foster, Industry Ussher, Psychology Chester, Madness Joan Busfield, Men, Women and Madness: Understanding Gender and Mental Disorder, (London: Macmillan, 1996), p.15. Ussher, Psychology Ehrenreich, and English, Good 126. Chester, Madness Foster, Industry Ussher, Psychology Foster, Industry Judith K. [...]

[...] Many men feel uncomfortable to talk about their own health, and often ask their wives or their female partners to come with them for consultation. This relation between men and mental illness is the product of the culture as well as the result of the patriarchal system. According to Millett, the patriarchal system, “exaggerates biological differences between men and women, making sure that men always have the dominant, or masculine, roles and women always have the subordinate, or feminine ones. [...]