Women & Depression Part 3

Theory 3: Women get depression more because doctors secretly think they are all mad anyway

The statistic is, more women than men get DIAGNOSED with depression, and to get a diagnosis, you need a doctor.  Now being a nurse, I think I know a bit about doctors because I have worked with shitloads of them.  There are many different types of people that become doctors, but 99% of them are posh, and 100% of them love cake.  I have been told that posh people differ in personality as much as normal people, I don't know if I believe this to be honest, as I have seen Made in Chelsea.  However, it is likely that when a patient comes into the GP surgery saying they are feeling depressed, the GP will respond in a way that is individual to them, as they are an independent thinking type of organism.  They will also be influenced by a few things, like cake, and NICE guidelines for treatment, which are basically advisory documents designed to help doctors treat people according to the latest and best evidence of what is said to work.  However, there are hundreds of other influences at work when doctors, or any person, makes decisions.  Past experience of similar situations, personal values, and also more unconscious processes going on in the mind that people are largely unaware of.  One of these is personal perceptions of gender.  

Stereotypical views of women include: gentle, weak, soft hearted, delicate, emotional, irrational, sensitive... the list goes on.  When faced with one of these creatures in the GP surgery, saying she feels depressed, the GP might reason that this picture fits.  The woman is emotional, she is quite likely to become depressed as she is of a weaker nature than men, and subsequently is less able to deal with the trials of normal life.  Therefore, a diagnosis of depression is appropriate.  When you consider the same situation with a male patient, however, it can be viewed differently, because of the influence of gender stereotypes.  Men are traditionally supposed to be strong, tough, unemotional, logical, capable, stable individuals.  Seeing a man in a weak position, complaining of feeling depressed, gets a lot of people's backs up.  Think of how it feels to see men cry.  No one likes to see men cry, people find that quite disturbing.  I lose count of the times I ask a doctor about a patient's condition at work and the reply is 'He needs to man up'.  A lot of these doctors will go on to be GPs, and they will take that attitude with them, along with a lot of cake.

Now, I'm not saying that the GPs don't have a clue, and that they are all sexist, God knows I've been to some amazing ones over the years who have helped me.  Men do get diagnosed with depression more nowadays, its not like they are given a stiff brandy and told to pull themselves together while the women are given as much valium as they can eat (that was the 60s).  All I'm saying is that there are subtle attitudes about sex that exist in all our brains, and as GPs are human beings, this is bound to influence them in their practice.