2023-07-27 14:03:15
“Are you on your period or what?” » What woman hasn’t been asked this question when expressing her anger?
This question is so anchored in the collective vocabulary that it is also used by mental health professionals, as revealed by the data collected by the British association CALM.
The data obtained by CALM was collected from several women aged 18 to 34.
Nearly a quarter of these women admitted to the association that they did not wish to discuss their mental health for fear of being qualified as “people seeking attention” as relayed by the British media Metro.
A problem when you know that, according to Public Health France, suicides among women aged 15-29 were on the rise in 2021 up to 22%.
And those who had the courage to talk regarding it were told, for 27% of them, that it might be due to hormones.
Simon Gunning, CEO of CALM, interviewed by Metro, explained: “Our research shows that even when they do speak out, young women’s feelings and symptoms are often ignored. These harmful preconceptions leave young women voiceless and unsupported and lives are at risk like never before. »
Women, perpetual victims of their gender in medicine
The same survey also revealed that1 in 5 women have been asked regarding their periods at least once by a mental health professional.
This question would have provoked in these women a feeling of invisibilization of their mental health. If the latter had answered “yes”, would they have been taken seriously? Would they have been prescribed a treatment adapted to their needs?
The association also lists the main factors contributing to mental health crises in women aged 18 to 34:
- body image (44 %),
- loneliness (39 %),
- relationship problems (32 %),
- money worries (33 %),
- and compare yourself to others on social media (26 %).
Women’s mental health must come first
A report recently published by the National Assembly stated that mental health problems are the largest item of health insurance expenditurewith an annual cost of 23.4 billion euros.
And yet, it remains silent, especially with regard to women. “This lack of interest, combined with the fact that medicine is thought out and organized in relation to a reference model which is the male model, explains that the specificities of women in the field of mental health are generally unknown, including in the medical field. However, mental health represents a major element of the well-being of each individual and constitutes an important factor of social cohesion” underlined the same report of the National Assembly.
Better management of women’s mental health is therefore necessary, both for their state of well-being and for the item of expenditure that this represents today in our society.
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