Introduction
The understanding of stress and its effect on gender is key in furthering understanding of how stress influences human behavior in general. There are many preconceived notions that arise when addressing the differences between women and men specifically in relation to how they handle stressful situations. While women are often perceived as being more emotional than men, and this is presumed to carry-over into their decision making, it is actually men who more frequently act based on emotion. Likewise, many researchers are adamant about pointing out that most of the research on gender in stress response, until recently, has focused on the differences in reactions to stress. The data collected from this approach has proven to be one sided due to the fact that it doesn’t account for the identity of the stressor. Since men and women are prone to feel stress over different circumstances, judging them based on their methods of reaction without knowing what they are reacting to becomes a futile effort. This author intends to clarify the dividing line between the genders in relation to their interactions with stress, in the belief that when all of the difference are accounted for research will show men and women have similar response types based on the level of stress experienced.
Background
It is largely believed within the sociological community doing gender research that understanding how and why women differ in coping strategies can lead to a better understanding of general coping strategies. This belief is supported by a background of studies that show men and women have a history of differing in cognitive and physiological factors that are often thought to be closely related to coping with stress. The core cause for trying to better understand human coping methods ultimately rests in the direct relation stress shares with one’s mental and physical health. In the report Gender Differences in Coping With Stress: When Stressors and Appraisals Do Not Differ, researchers point out that while women are popularly assumed to be more likely to use emotion-focused methods such as venting, expressing emotions, becoming depressed, or avoiding the situation, when dealing with stressful situations, men are actually more frequent in using emotion-focused coping (Ptacek, 1994). The author also notes that men are more likely to have reported use of drug and alcohol use, and turning against others, while women will be more prone to find social support to counter feelings of alienation or loneliness (Ptacek, 1994). These are key factors that significantly influence the state of one’s difficulty in dealing with stressful situations. Ptacek finds that the fact women are more likely to use the support of social groups coincides with the fact women tend to have more interdependent social networks than men, and a higher need for affiliation with others (Ptacek, 2004). Men and women also differ in what they find to be stressful for example, Ptacek notes that “in community samples, men report experiencing more stressful events associated with work and finance, whereas women report experiencing more stressful events associated with family and health (1994).” The author concludes from this statistic the argument that women and men don’t differ in their coping their coping methods but that they ‘appear’ to just be faced with different life stresses which demand different forms of response. It is Ptacek’s view that this formality is often overlooked in much gender research due to the fact that a he says, “From this perspective, gender differences may be most likely to occur when subjects are simply asked to indicate how they coped with the most stressful event of the recent past and coping comparisons are then made without regard to the nature of the recalled event (Ptacek, 2004).” By not identifying the stressor, in many cases, assessing the method of response becomes irrelevant. Life stresses were assessed in Ptacek’s study by asking subjects whether they experienced stressful events in certain categories, being family, friends, relationships with significant others, health, school, job, and finance.
Biologically, research shows that men and women are actually notall that different. Pertaining to cognition, men are more suited for mental rotation, navigation using geometry and recognizing objects within visual backgrounds. Women show better memory for locating objects and navigating through the use of landmarks (Allen, Goldscheider, & Ciambrone, 1999; Baider et al., 1995; Ben-Tov, 1992; Ptacek et al., 1994). As far as motor skills, from age 3-5 years old onward, men show an exceptional accuracy at aiming projectiles, while women show the ability for exceptional speech rate and small amplitude coordination. Pertaining to math skills, men are best suited for solving abstract reasoning problems, while women tend to be statistically best at computation and calculation problem solving. As far as verbal abilities go, women show earlier development of virtually every aspect of verbal ability, verbal memory, spelling grammar and fluency (Oren & Sherer, 2001). When emotions come into play, men and women use different areas of their brains to control sexuality, but most of the chemical systems overlap and most of the social bonding is somehow connected to the sexual process. Men and women have different forms of aggression. In most mammals, men tend to be the aggressor; many forms of aggression are controlled through different neural pathways (Oren & Sherer, 2001). BNST manages ‘affective attack’; this region is sensitized by testosterone and desensitized by estrogen. AVP stimulation increases aggressive behavior and drives persistence; circuits for this neuron are also more prevalent in males than in Females (Allen, Goldscheider, & Ciambrone, 1999; Baider et al., 1995; Ben-Tov, 1992; Ptacek et al., 1994). The mild biological differences that exist between men and women can only be significantly contrast their methods of responding to stress when the stressor in some way capitalizes on either sex’s chemical weakness. For example, men are psychologically more prone to substance abuse; a man under the influence of a substance that inhibits or enhances the circulation of AVP would affect the testosterone levels in the male’s bosy, thus making him more or less aggressive. This shift in behavior would entirely be dependent on whether the male abuses substances as a coping strategy for stress. This would have the same effect for a woman, but men are more prone to this dysfunctional behavior. Oddly enough, maternal stress can lead to a drop testosterone development desynchronizing or preventing masculinization. Stress can also effect the human body’s ability to heal itself when sick or influence the method of coping with disease.
To measure the social adjustment of those enduring psychological distress experienced by fighting with cancer Neta Peleg-Oren & Moshe Sherer conducted a study. In it a total of 87 participated along with their spouses participated. The patients underwent active chemotherapy and radiation treatment; three questionnaires were used to assess information, a personal information sheet, a Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) list to identify stressors, and the PAIS-SR to examine psychosocial adjustment to physical illness. Surprisingly, it was found that the spouses reported encountering the same level of psychological distress as those actually coping with the disease. Women and men both reported having difficulty with their social adjustment. The key finding of this report was that men reported having a higher level of anxiety and paranoia (Oren & Sherer, 2001).
The authors found that in a study of 100 cancer patients, all undergoing radiation therapy, men were more likely to use denial as a coping strategy or a defense mechanism when facing their disease (Oren & Sherer, 2001), this assumed to be due to a feeling of obligation to maintain the male sexual identity and the traditional male role. Women in western society were found to be more likely to develop distress and pychopathology as a reaction to negative life events. Men were much less susceptible to this trait. This was due to the fact that in Almeida and Kessler’s studies, women reported having a higher prevalence of high-distress days than men (1998). There researchers supposed that this was based on the argument that the socialization of women prevented them from being psychologically developed enough to endure stress induced pressures. Spouses of the canser patients were found to have just as much stress as their loved ones dealing with cancer, but the patients reported having more difficulty than their spouses dealing with sexual relations and extended family relationships. This was an important finding because it was a result that maintained regardless of gender. Both male and female patients showed equal discomfort enduring sexual or family relations. The result of this finding was that Cancer is equally stressful for patience and spouses whether they are male or female, which puts spouses in a position where they can not automatically be treated as support system for patients, but as potential patients themselves undergoing a crisis who may need psychological attention (Allen, Goldscheider, & Ciambrone, 1999; Baider et al., 1995; Ben-Tov, 1992; Ptacek et al., 1994). Another key finding was that spouses tended to feel isolated in society, and the effects of this proved to be more dramatic for men than for women due to a more communal and social network base common of females. This was also found to be an issue in that male spouses find themselves more intensely isolated from both society and their marriage due to a lack of ability to properly care for the patient. As, Oregen and Sherer note, “For many reasons, embracing the roles of care and support giver for an ill female spouse can be problematic for the healthy male spouse. Typically, males view their primary role in the instrumental areas of relationships and trust their female spouses in the emotional ones, which are those that closely approximate the care-giving role (2001).
In their study The Roles of Stress and Coping in Explaining Gender Differences in Risk for Psychopathology Among African American Urban Adolescents Ginger Carlson and Kathryn Grant assess the relations among gender for 1,200 low income African American urban adolescents. In this study girls reported having more symptoms than boys, and having a higher tendency to internalize their responses to stress. Boy stress stemmed from major events, they experienced more exposure to violence, and they had more sexual stressors than girls. Boy in gangs specifically reported a higher rate of sexual stressors and having substance abuse problems (Kazdin & Johnson, 1994; Loeber & Keenan, 1994; Overbeek, Vollebergh, Meeus, Engels, & Luijpers, 2001). Researchers were also adamant to pint out that ethnic minority groups, such as African Americans, are highly underrepresented in gender study literature, which made this collection of information that much more valuable. They found that the lower socioeconomic status and urban environment increased the frequency of stressors as well as the intensity of stressful circumstances.
Gender differences in stress, coping, and psychological symptoms in adolescents have been well documented with White, middle-class samples. Results suggest that female adolescents have a higher incidence of psychopathology than do male adolescents (Romano, Tremblay, Vitaro, Zoccolillo, & Pagani, 2001; Steinhausen, 1992). This gender difference appears to be fully accounted for by gender differences in internalizing problems, such as depression and anxiety. (Carlson & Grant, 2001)
Dually this inclination towards social anxiety it was reported made African American female adolescents more prone to the insecurities that peer pressure to have sexual intercourse at a younger age only enhancing the threat of catching sexually transmitted diseases. In fact female were found to be more exposed to stressors than young black males as well as more prone to contract STDs (Apling, 2002; de Anda et al., 2000).”To apply this model to gender differences in symptoms, if girls are exposed to greater stress than boys, they would be more likely to develop psychological symptoms. In fact, a number of studies with primarily White, middle-class samples have found that girls report exposure to a larger number of stressful life events than do boys (Carlson & Grant)” As well as a more potent pool of stressors prevalent for adolescent girls, there are many more threatening pitfalls for their physical and psychological health.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the May 2008 reports, 3.2 million girls between the age of fourteen and nineteen have been infected by at least one of the four: HPV, chlmyadia, herpes simplex virus, and trichomassis, most common STDs. According to the data in the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the two most common overall STDs were HPV leading with 18 percent, and clhamydia, with 4 percent. The human papillomarvirus (HPV) is a group of viruses that has over 100 different strains. Of the hundred strains, over thirty of these are sexually transmitted. HPV infection causes abnormal Pap tests in women, which can show to cancer of the cervix, vulva, and vagina. Approximately 6.2 million Americans will get genital HPV infection each year. Eighty percent of women, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, will get the genital HPV infection by age 50. Because of the growing number of newly infected victims, it should be mandatory for girls entering the sixth grade to receive the HPV vaccine.
One – third of American girls, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention survey of June 2006, have had intercourse by age fifteen (Nelson). This percentage is increasing every year. Many parents are against the mandatory vaccination because they do not understand why their twelve – year – old daughter should receive a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease. Cervical cancer in American women is becoming an epidemic. In 2007, or estimated 11,000 American women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer, and 3,700 will die (Bristol 2). Although ninety percent of HPV cases cause genital warts, ten percent of the infections with certain HPV strains are considered ‘known human carcinogens’ that can cause cervical cancer in women and certain cancers in men (Bristol 2). Because Pap smears help lead to early diagnoses in women, a new vaccine was discovered to prevent HPV and help decreases the number of women with cervical cancer.
Merck’s and Co’s Gardasil, helps prevent infection from HPV. The Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil in June 2006. Gardasil targets cancer-causing HPV strains sixteen and eighteen, which cause seventy percent of cervical cancer, and types six and eleven, which cause ninety percent of genital warts (Bristol 2). Research has proven that in women, ninety percent of cervical HPV becomes undetectable after two years. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the vaccine be used in eleven and twelve- year old girls continuously, because the younger the girl starts to take the shot the better she will build immunization against the HPV infection. For girls thirteen and older, CDC recommends the girls to take ‘catch up’ vaccines. The vaccination is beneficial for young girls’ health, which can later be destroyed by cervical cancer. The vaccine only prevents the HPV infection, and not pregnancy or AIDS. HPV can be contracted without sexual intercourse, simply through genital contact. According to the CDC, most people who have genital HPV infection do not know they are infected; the virus lives in the skin or mucous membranes and usually causes no symptoms. Parents worry that the vaccination will promote their children sexual behavior. Introducing the vaccine to young girls can lead to the discussion about sex between parents and their teens. Parents can take this opportunity to talk to their teens about the seriousness of other sexually transmitted diseases. Although the talk is a difficult one it allows the parent and teen to establish a deeper relationship. Sex education is taught in schools, but the promotion of abstinence is not always effective. According to Arthur L. Caplan, Chairman of Department of Medical Ethics at University of Pennsylvania, a major study showed that abstinence-only sex education had absolutely no impact on the sexual behavior of students taking these classes (Bristol 21). There are approximately 850,000 teen pregnancies that occur very year. Thirty – four percent of teen pregnancies are women under eighteen.
Another concern of parents regarding the new vaccine is the cost. Gardasil costs about $120 for each dose. The dose consists of three shots. There are federal assistant programs to help those unable to afford with the cost of Gardasil. The federal Vaccines for Children fund negotiated a discount and pays $96 per dose, according to Merck (Bristol 15). Also, through the Immunization Grant Program, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, the federal government will help pay for the shots (Allen, Goldscheider, & Ciambrone, 1999; Baider et al., 1995; Ben-Tov, 1992; Ptacek et al., 1994). Along with federal assistance, state health department are offering funding. New Hampshire has agreed to offer the vaccine to all girls under the age of eighteen at no cost. In the long term, the cost for Gardasil compared to the cost of treatments for cervical cancer, follow – up tests, cell removal, and repeated Pap test, is cheaper. The cost for follow-ups, cervical cancer treatments like cell removal or cell destruction, is $3 billion annually. Gardasil is only offering a solution for a serious problem.
HPV is an epidemic in America. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 20 million people are currently infected with HPV(Allen, Goldscheider, & Ciambrone, 1999; Baider et al., 1995; Ben-Tov, 1992; Ptacek et al., 1994). This virus does not just affect women but also men. Men who contract HPV often never show any signs or symptoms. Unlike women, there is currently no test that can find HPV in men therefore; there is no prevention for men. The only vaccine to help prevent HPV was designed for women because of the Pap smear to detect early symptoms. Every year 3.5 million of 5 million Pap smears show abnormal results (Bristol 19). The HPV vaccine can help save young girls lives. A daughter can be one less victim of cervical cancer.
Psychological
Women are more likely to seek therapy (Judith, 52). There is an over-diagnosis of women and an under-diagnosis of men. General discrimination towards women is that communal traits aren’t as valued as physical strength, which can lead to depression. House work creates sense of never having leisure time, it provides no emotional reward and an isolation factor. Emphasis on physical appearance, body image eating disorders, lack of control over appearance leads to depression. Gender roles, since women are expected to be communal their relationships can lead to depression because there is more pressure on them to have good relationships, so when the relationships are unsuccessful, they tend to blame themselves.
In the work Women In Small-Town Policing, researchers asses the self perceived, and supervisory-perceived stress of female police officers in Minnesota. They examine thirty full-time female police officers working across a range of 19 small towns. This testing pool makes up 91% of the full-time female officers in Vermont. For a control groups a comparable number of male officers were studied as well. The study found that for the most part, male and female officers experienced the same stress in small town-policing (Bartol & Bergen, 1992). The research did show that women reported feeling a larger obligation to keep their partners safe, and a heavy feeling of stress associated with being female in a male dominated occupation, but this increase in stress did not prove to affect job performance. It was found by this research that men and women perform their policing duties equally well. This research is a very significant contribution to the study of Gender and stress on the grounds that most of the information collected on female police officers is gathered from urban areas. Information of small town police departments and the female experience is very rare. The few studies that have been carried out in the past focus more on the female officer’s ability to perform police work, testing their physical and psychological capabilities, as opposed to analyzing stress factors. As recognized by Bartol and Begen, the police work involve significant levels of stress that can effect performance, and yet was rarely ever addressed in most studies comparing female officers to men, “Organizational stressors generally refer to the policies and practices of te police department itself. They include poor pay, excessive paperwork, insufficient training, inadequate equipment, weekend duty, shift work, limited promotional opportunities, poor supervision and administrative support, and poor relationships with supervision and administrative support, and poor relationships with supervisors or colleagues (Bartol & Bergen, 1992).” The officers were tested for this level of organizational stress, by filling out a questionnaire that asked “about what you think is your greatest source of stress, and why.” Six of the 162 who responded were identified as female, representing those whose stressful issues were feminine in nature.
A little over two thirds of the test group equaling about 68% of the respondents viewed organizational stressors as the key cause of their stress. The authors do point out how the these organizational stressors can be different for women than they are for men when they point out that, “women entering the male-dominated occupation of policing are likely to face an array of stressors not usually experienced by men, including sexual harassment, negative attitudes of male officers and supervisors, working as the sole female officer, and lack of role models (Bartol & Bergen, 1992).” The authors then refer to a test done in a metropolitan police station in North California, where 25 women patrol officers were interviewed and they reported their organizational stressors as the products of being female in a male dominated department. The issues specifically noted were, “Inadequate training, rumors about them within the department, lack of promotional opportunities, …Negative attitudes of the male officers, lack of role models, and group blame (one poorly performing female officer prompts men to generalize to all female officers) were the second group of stressors mentioned repeatedly (Bartol & Bergen, 1992).
No work of classic literature better exemplifies the stresses of western sexism and the history of the relationship women have had with psychological disorder than Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
Esther Greenwood, from the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, contests the hypocrisies of 1950’s male misogyny; she endures the prejudices that come with the era’s premature perception of mental illness, and she helps Plath to live on vicariously through her, in a way the great poet could not. The Bell Jar portrays mental illness as a disease to be ashamed of, and disregarded. The book is written from the perspective of those living in the 1950’s. Plath’s main character, Esther Greenwood, experiences this inadequacy and discovers the truth about the society as she is treated for her medical diagnosis. In this book, Plath, like Greenwood, takes a step out of the typical beliefs and boundaries of her era. A woman ahead of her time, Plath rebels through her writing, and asks more of society than it asks of itself. Her main character, Esther, goes through depressive social interactions that play off each other, until she has an identity crisis, and looks to suicide as her only end. The conflict stems more from the limitations of society to be able to accept this type of behavior from a young woman than the illness itself.
Esther is the I of the Bell Jar, in that she perceives everything as it happens, even when it’s happening to her. Each connection she forms throughout her growth all contribute to her final state of balance. The relationships she forms with others are documented as they happen, and each one influences her sanity. So much so, one relationship she has causes her to lose her sanity and then another causes her to reclaim it. Esther’s father passes away when she is 9 years old. She never finds a good relationship with a man, and she has no, real, deep connection with her mother. Plus she is separated from all the other girls she encounters, particularly Joan, by her lack of wealth. It should be noted that, though all the girls are in New York for the same reason, they are granted this trip according to the stereotypical confines of their male overseers. The trip in itself is a form of molding the women for their place in society. Esther makes this clear when she says,
we had all won a fashion magazine contest,…, and as prizes they gave us jobs in New York for a month, expenses paid, and piles and piles of free bonuses, like ballet tickets and passes to fashion shows and hair styling at a famous expensive salon and chances to meet successful people in the field of our desire and advice about what to do with our particular complexions (Plath, p4).
If Esther is anything like Plath, as the reader is expected to believe, she will eventually see this ploy, the same way she eventually sees through Buddy. Not to forget, the nature of the relationship she has with Buddy is very fake and empty. The fact that she is such a poetic introspective thinker, and Buddy is the exact opposite is even more draining to her character. In fact, Plath presents her decision to cheat on Buddy in reaction to his affair as one of the key factors to her descent into madness. Here the direct conflict between male and female differences in the 1950’s propels and already ill woman into coping with a full fledge psychological disorder.
The Bell Jar’s greatness as a book is increased even more by Sylvia Plath’s method of writing and the sharing of her thoughts. Plath opened the doors to reality and through feministic views, showed the treatment of women, images and events about sex, and the mentally ill; both were thought of as inferior and less important during her time. Family and work pressures, transitions from adolescence to womanhood, or motherhood to menopause, even the stresses of daily life can influence mental health. In her article, . “the intricate web of influences- genetic, sexual, and social – that affect mental well-being. Throughout the novel, Esther Greenwood is cynical, rebellious, and against the conventions of society; yet she had attempted to behave normally and fit in to the crowd. Her low self-esteem, the experience and the lack of experience she has of life, and the environment that surrounds her, leads to her inability to function and attempts of suicide. Esther’s troubles originate in her mind, but become worse by all the circumstances around her. This is another example of the bildunsgroman model.
As a young woman, who rebels against the limitations of 1950 society, Esther feels a disconnection with the rest of the world. She gains the will to surpass darkness, and to live life again.
Many scholars believe that if Esther was diagnosed today, she would be identified as a victim of Borderline Personality Disorder. This is a disorder characteristic of disrupted interpersonal relationships. It’s most common with females, and causes mood swings. These people tend to fear abandonment and get very frantic over the thought of failure or rejection. Esther displays many of these same characteristics throughout the novel. In her article Mental Wellness for Women, Rita Baron-Faust describes BPD as a pattern of unstable self-image, personal relationships and moods and impulsiveness (Baron-Faust 77). Some experts describe BPD as a major “identity crisis,” characterized by extreme uncertainty about many life issues, including career choices, long-term goals, choices in friends or lovers, questions of values and even sexual orientation (Baron-Faust, p84). It is up for debate, whether BPD is Esther’s disorder; but the authenticity of Esther’s mental illness undoubtedly is the draw for many young readers, and scholastic analysis.
In her article, “A Ritual For Being Born Twice” Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Marjorie G. Perloff analyzes the popular appeal the novel holds among young women. The concept of the emotional distress that comes from illness conflicting with the psychological and social boundaries, used to confine women during the 1950’s, is interpreted as a major contribution to the books growing fan base. The major draw the book has is the complex nature of Esther’s dysfunctions. She is mentally ill in a way that leaves her situation open to be theorized. Barron-Faust characterized Esther as having borderline personality disorder. This is based on her impulsive mood swings and unpredictable personality. In Perloff’s essay, she cites a scholar by the name of J.D. Lang, who characterizes Esther’s behavior as being the schizoid personality type. He says this is due to her often disconnection from reality. Lang even gives an example from the book where Esther is being questioned by the Ladies’ Day, she asks, What do you have in mind after you graduate? Lang points out that Esther observes herself respond, and doesn’t feel attached to her actions. Plath writes this response as, ‘I don’t really know,’ I heard my-self say…(Plath). This citing enforces Lang’s position, but it is also said that people with borderline personality disorder have the same type of disconnection. Even these scholars are left with no other choice but to theorize over what might have been Esther’s sickness. The main sickness that leads to her almost committing suicide is still up for debate.
In 1988, when Hwang received an Antoinette Perry Award for his work on M. Butterfly, it established him as the only Asian American ever to win Tony. This was for the play’s ability to deconstruct preconceived notions formed during the postcolonial era pertaining to race, sexuality and gender. M. Butterfly’s plot focuses on a relationship between French diplomat Rene Gallimard and Song Liling. Unbeknownst to Rene, Song is actually a man dressed as a woman working for the government for secret information. M. Butterfly is based on an actual controversy that occurred in 1986, when French diplomat, Bernard Bouriscot found that he had been maintaining a twenty year relationship with an international spy posing as a Chinese opera singer. Referring to his lover of twenty years Shi Pei Pu, Bouriscot argued that he had been under the impression that the opera singer was a woman. Within this story, Hwang identified the disempowered feminizing persona that western ideals assign to the east. He devised a plot for his play through collaborating concepts from this scandalous news story with the storyline of Giacomo Puccini’s Italian opera Madama Butterfly (1904). In Puccini’s play, a Japanese woman falls in love with an Englishman, and he eventually abandons her. The vast acclaim both the play and the novel received in the western world is largely due to the devout following of misogyny in embedded in the socialization of the western male and the homophobia that comes along with it. This can be categorized as the most core sexual stressor of them all effecting men in contemporary society. The need to maintain and defend one’s masculinity and heterosexuality at all costs is the key catalyst to the use of the denial strategy as a coping mechanism for men. This fear of being feminized, in some way, has led to heinous and violent hate crimes by many men throughout history. While the classic default from stress for women is to go insane with suicidal despair like in Plath’s Bell Jar, men tend to become insane with power and kill one another. There is no greater example of this throughout history than Hitler, who was so insane with denial of his Jewish Heritage he attempted to massacre an entire nation of people.
Sociological Influences
Popular culture’s interpretation of American cities, members of particular social classes, cultures, and historical events all have been heavily influenced by the media, specifically film. Often, Hollywood’s depictions of these aspects of daily life are taken as authentic interpretations, when in actuality they have exaggerated the truth, or just exploited stereotypes. The result of this is a dual reality, one that is exact and immediate, and one that is in the mind. The gender roles of Western civilization can be seen as a direct product of this system; they cluster around the individuals of Western society The obligation women feel to be child bearers, raise families, and to be communal agents for the maintenance of a peaceful society are all derived from the ideals promoted through television, radio, film and in magazines. The demand for women to be attractive in Western culture is prevalent and real, while a man just as easily can feel attractive with a potbelly and a balled head. This simple double standard is an example of the underlying injustice settled within the crust of gender roles.
The most noted and obsessively received film depicting California life is the film Clueless. The film can very easily be proclaimed as a contemporary version of Jane Austen’s novel Emma. The main characters are high class snobs who pride themselves in their matchmaking abilities. Emma Woodhouse is a member of an upscale society in nineteenth century England, while Cher Horowitz lives in wealthy, upscale Beverly Hills U.S.A. Both Cher and Emma are among the culturally elite in their societies. Cher’s father is a litigation lawyer in Los Angeles the most affluent city in America, and Cher is arguably the most popular girl in her school. Just like Jane Austen’s novel was a depiction of upscale elitists life in London during the Victorian era, Clueless depicts the same socioeconomic class only with regards to Beverly Hills in the 90’s. This can directly be connected to Austen’s description of Emma in which she describes Emma as, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition (5). The film’s reception was so popular it inadvertently resulted in further establishing the archetype of the valley girl (which is most synonymous with snobby, wealthy, Barbie-like California teenagers) as an American stereotype. America’s historical infatuation with this stereotypical image can most prevalently be seen with the notorious popularity of women like Marilyn Monroe, Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, and Britney Speares. The ironic notion that comes into play when considering the fame of these women is that they maintain a popularity that is based more on infamy for misconduct than for any form of virtuous or credibly valuable contribution to society. The women in the public eye who do garner the respect of society rarely receive the same level of exposure as their more provocative counterparts, thus making them less likely to sway social expectations of women. The underlying burdens placed on women by the social expectations of society, as well as the contrasting expectations placed on men, lead both parties to have different stressors, which in turn will result in differing responses. Society’s effect on the mental health of women can be directly connected to how women respond to the gender roles set out for them.
The gender roles placed on women are far more harmful than they seem. Women are expected to have communal traits whereas men are expected to be agentic. Communal traits are things that maintain strong relationships like being nurturing or compassionate, and polite. Men are generally expected to be assertive and competitive (White, pg 58). When these gender roles are violated society tends to discriminate. In the work place, when a woman is especially assertive she is often referred to as a bitch or masculine because others believe she is “not very feminine” but if a man were to do the same he would simply be seen as a go-getter (White, pg 59). This is a Western society norm, and it obviously puts women at a serious disadvantage professionally, because in order for her to achieve success as defined by society she must maintain relationships and not sacrifice them for advances in her career. As a result, women hold lower positions, don’t get paid as much as men, and don’t get as many promotions. This prejudice is the core cause to mental health problems for women, as well as an inherent trait of western society.
At every level of education, it has been proven that women make less than men (Judith, 52). Women are less likely to ask for raises because they don’t like to self-promote, and they also don’t want to create any animosity between her and her supervisor which would violate her role as a woman. As a result of these professional setbacks women tend to be in lower economic classes. Anyone with financial problems is at a higher risk for depression, but women have lower paying jobs, so they are more liable (Judith, 52). Poverty definitely plays a big part in the development of depression, among other disorders. Not having enough money to eat is severe stress and not having enough money to feed your children is twice as bad.
One major problem in society that is mentally affecting women is the culture of thinness. There is a constant pressure placed on women to be attractive, thin, and fit into the valley girl image established by films like Clueless. through the media and the stick-thin models regularly gracing magazine covers. As a result, women are more likely to develop eating disorders. Anorexia, an eating disorder that involves drastic fasting, and Bulimia, which consists of binge eating followed by any compensatory behavior, are virtually nonexistent in men (White, pg 62). Both of these disorders lead to serious health problems but anorexia ultimately leads to death by starvation. It is thought that these disorders are caused by a perceived lack of control in their lives; which is balanced by these women having complete control over their looks. Discrimination against unattractive or overweight women is an unspoken prejudice. This epidemic of attaining physical perfection is actually an unnecessary and harmful setback for women.
In the text book Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Gender, author Jacuelyn W. White discusses the cultural differences between men and women. She argues that men and women live in entirely two separate worlds and likens the contrasting relationship between them to that of two different cultures. The requirements society places on this underlying female culture is the core cause of violence against women, such as rape sexual harassment and physical abuse (White, pg 58). Western society designates women into an objectified position. They are seen as objects of sexual obsession, and a reward of male agentic interaction, but they are not seen as equal within male culture. Oddly enough, within female culture, mainstream success is based on beauty, politeness and being conductors of societal interaction. This is often the reason why the common saying is made that, if women ruled the world, war would no longer exist.
In her book, Women’s Lives, Judeth Bridges analyzes dysfunctional female mental health. She points out that girls and women account for 95 percent of cases of anorexia nervosa (Judith, 52). One to four percent of all female adolescents and young adults suffer from the disorder (Judith, 52). Women are two to three times more likely to experience depression over their lifetime. Women are also more likely to attempt suicide. Anorexia nervosa, and Bulimia are diseases, but they can both be seen as the direct result of personality disorders formed by women in reaction to societal confines. The influences these societal confines have on the mental health of women is undeniable, but these societal prejudices are also being combated through contemporary film, in that empowered heroines endure stressful situations with the same assertive fearlessness as men.
The heroines in cinema and in western literature throughout history have provided mental and visual depictions of the very differences between the genders that researchers have tried to corner. The performing arts have evolved over time, from not allowing blacks, or women to perform, to having minorities in lead roles where they play everyman/woman characters. From the villainously empowering days of the Femme fatale, to the current science fiction roles in which women save the world without any male assistance, and endured all of the vigors and stressors of heroism the same as a man, while always maintaining their femininity. This is most true of those female celebrities who have established themselves as capable to play a broad range of roles. Actresses like Angelina Jolie, Demi Moor and Sigourney Weaver play everything from action adventure heroines to pregnant mothers. These women have contributed to the tradition of changing societal expectations of women through film and in literature. It is important to note that while many of the classical works depicting women going through psychological disorders, saving the world, or just carrying out their lives in during a given era, are fictional, their tone and message are often true to form and make valid statements about the differences between lifestyles for men and women.
In sum, research shows that there are many intricate differences and similarities between men and women pertaining to how they cope with stress, but for the most part men and women handle stress the same way. Dependant on the region of where a study is taking place, method through which information is collected, and how the test is governed, there can be a wide range of results. Studies have shown the differences between male and female coping strategies when dealing with major health issues, like cancer, for the most part garner the same responses, give or take some alternating psychological behavior between the sexes due to gender roles. It is also very clear that among African American youth in low income areas women show more cause for concern in that they have a higher tendency to internalize their symptoms of their stress, leading to bad physical health, and a habit of avoiding proper treatment. Female adolescents are more vulnerable to STDs than men and psychological disorders, they also have more stressors prevalent within society. Likewise, history has shown that when men are more prone t violence and substance abuse, while women are more prone to depression and social anxiety. Sex appears to be more of an issue for men than women, as they feel more of an obligation to maintain their masculine gender role, while women report feeling more obligated to be communal and non-threatening, as well as live up to social expectations projected by the media. Overall, while men and women report experiencing the same levels of stress during stressful circumstances, women do appear to have a larger pool of stressors available to them than in western society than men.
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