What’s the matter with women?

Perhaps they should be more like men

Reposting another article published in The Critic from earlier this year that I never linked to from substack: a critical take on Caitlin Moran’s book ‘What about men?’. First section reproduced below:

“What’s the matter with women? The litany of disquieting mental health statistics is almost endless, but let me list a few. Women are three times as likely to experience mental health problems as men, and they are twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety. For young women, it’s even worse — they are more likely to feel lonely than young men, and they have skyrocketing mental health issues linked to social media. It gets no better as they age: women are more likely to be depressed than men when they work long hours, when they are bosses, when they are married, when they become parents and in later life. Most seriously, women are more likely than men to experience suicidal thoughts and to attempt suicide.

What’s the conclusion that we must draw from this disparity? Clearly, it’s that men have better emotional coping strategies than women, and therefore women have much to learn from men in this regard. Perhaps talking to others less about their problems could be one answer — after all, 40 per cent of men (the sex with fewer mental health problems, remember) won’t talk about their mental health with anyone. Or perhaps what’s needed in conversations amongst friends is less emotional support and more cutting banter? That’s how men (the psychologically healthy sex) talk to each other after all.”

Read the rest at The Critic.