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Asked by anon-216549 to Robert, Olly, Nicola, Jasmin, Dennis, Caroline on 15 Jun 2019.
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Robert Dempsey answered on 15 Jun 2019:
I don’t think one gender experiences more or less mental health issues overall, but there are some gender differences when you look at more specific experiences (e.g. women tend to be more likely to self-harm, but men are more likely to die by suicide). There are some mental health issues that are gender-specific – for example, the experience of depression and/or psychotic symptoms can happen after childbirth for some women. I work a lot with people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and it’s interesting that both men and women appear to be equally likely to experience bipolar – but we don’t know as much about men’s experiences of a bipolar diagnosis (I’m doing a study on this topic with a student at my university).
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Caroline Brett answered on 15 Jun 2019:
I don’t think one gender is more likely to experience mental illness than the other. Certain illnesses are more prevalent in one gender than another – for example, schizophrenia is more common in young males than females (but can also appear in women later in life) – and the reaction to mental illnesses can differ by gender (such as males being more likely to die by suicide than females, plus the higher tendency for females to talk about mental health difficulties such as depression or anxiety than males). But generally I don’t believe there are differences between the genders
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Dennis Relojo-Howell answered on 15 Jun 2019:
Just like Rob and Caroline, I don’t think there’s a difference between gender when it comes to mental illness. But men are less likely to talk about their mental health issues. For example, men seem to suffer from depression just as often as women, but they are less likely to ask for help – this has something to do with stigma.
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Nicola Johnstone answered on 16 Jun 2019:
Like the others have said, there’s no clear evidence for any gender experiencing more mental illness that the other but some types of illness are more likely to happen at certain times.
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Jasmin Moon answered on 17 Jun 2019:
I would say that males and females are both susceptible to mental health problems, but the things that impact mental health and how problems are dealt with do vary between genders.
For example, men might feel pressure to be ‘masculine’ and therefore hide their feelings, not cry in front of others which leads to them bottling up their feelings (this could explain the higher suicide rates in men). Women on the other hand are more likely to talk about their feelings with friends and family.
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