Depression in women: Understanding the gender gap

 

About twice as many women as men experience depression. Several factors may increase a woman's risk of depression.  By Mayo Clinic Staff About 1 in 5 women develop depression at some point in life. Women are nearly twice as likely as men to have depression. Depression can occur at any age, but it's most common in women between the ages of 40 and 59. Some mood changes and depressed feelings occur with normal hormone changes. But hormone changes alone don't cause depression. Other biological factors, inherited traits and life experiences are also involved. Here's what contributes to depression in women — and what you can do about it. Puberty After puberty, depression rates are higher in females than in males. Because girls typically reach puberty before boys do, they're more likely to develop depression at an earlier age than boys. This depression gender gap lasts until after menopause. Hormone changes during puberty may increase some girls' risk of developing depression. However, temporary mood swings related to changing hormones during puberty are normal — these changes alone don't cause depression. Puberty is often associated with other factors that can play a role in depression, such as: Emerging sexuality and identity issues Conflicts with parents Increasing pressure to achieve in school, sports or other areas of life Premenstrual problems For most females with premenstrual syndrome (PMS), symptoms such as abdominal bloating, breast tenderness, headache, anxiety, irritability and a blue mood are minor and short-lived. But a small number of females have severe and disabling symptoms that disrupt their studies, jobs, relationships or other areas of their lives. At that point, PMS may cross the line into premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) — a type of depression that generally requires treatment. The exact interaction between depression and PMS remains unclear. It's possible that cyclical changes in estrogen, progesterone and other hormones can disrupt the function of brain chemicals such as serotonin that control mood. Inherited traits, life experiences and other factors appear to play a role. Pregnancy Dramatic hormonal changes occur during pregnancy, and these can affect mood. Other issues may also increase the risk of developing depression during pregnancy or during attempts to become pregnant, such as: Lifestyle or work changes Relationship problems Previous episodes of depression, postpartum depression or PMDD Lack of social support Mixed feelings about being pregnant Unwanted pregnancy Miscarriage Infertility Stopping use of antidepressant medications Postpartum depression Many new mothers find themselves sad, angry, irritable and prone to tears soon after giving birth. These feelings — sometimes called the baby blues — are normal and generally subside within a week or two. But more-serious or long-lasting depressed feelings may indicate postpartum depression, particularly if signs and symptoms include: Low self-esteem Anxiety Agitation Inability to care for your baby Thoughts of harming your baby Postpartum depression is a serious medical condition requiring prompt treatment. It occurs in about 10 to 25 percent of women. It's thought to be associated with major hormonal fluctuations that influence mood, predisposition to mood and anxiety disorders, birth complications, and poor social support. Next   http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/depression/art-20047725

Men may feel more threatened by female bosses, research finds

 

Men may feel threatened by female supervisors and act more assertively toward them than male bosses, which could disrupt the workplace with struggles over power dynamics, according to new research published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. "The concept of masculinity is becoming more elusive in society as gender roles blur, with more women taking management positions and becoming the major breadwinners for their families," said lead researcher Ekaterina Netchaeva, an assistant professor of management and technology at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. "Even men who support gender equality may see these advances as a threat to their masculinity, whether they consciously acknowledge it or not." While women are underrepresented in senior management positions in the United States, they are almost on par with men at middle and lower management levels, according to Labor Department statistics. In three experiments, Netchaeva and her co-authors discovered that men feel more threatened when they answer to female bosses. In an experiment with 76 college students (52 male, 24 female) at a U.S. university, participants were told they would negotiate their salary at a new job in a computer exercise with a male or female hiring manager. After the negotiation, participants took an implicit threat test where they guessed words that appeared on a computer screen for a fraction of a second. Participants who chose more threat-related words, including "fear" or "risk," were judged to feel more threatened. Male participants who negotiated with a female manager exhibited more threat and pushed for a higher salary ($49,400 average), compared to men negotiating with a male manager ($42,870 average). The manager's gender didn't affect female participants, who negotiated for a lower salary ($41,346 average), reflecting a common trend where women tend to be less aggressive than men in negotiations, Netchaeva said. In another experiment, 68 male college students had to decide how to split a $10,000 bonus with a male or female team member or supervisor. Male participants evenly split the money with male or female team members, but men felt more threatened by a female supervisor and tried to keep more money for themselves than with a male supervisor. In a similar experiment conducted online with 370 adult participants (226 male, 144 female) from the United States, men were more receptive to female supervisors who were described as proactive and direct rather than self-promotive and power-seeking. Specifically, male participants tried to keep a larger share of the $10,000 bonus if the female manager was described as ambitious or power-seeking. Female participants offered roughly the same bonus amount to proactive or ambitious female managers. Self-assertive behavior by men toward female bosses could disrupt the workplace dynamics, stifle team cohesiveness and negatively affect team performance, Netchaeva said. "In an ideal world, men and organizations would be concerned by these findings and adjust their behavior accordingly. But if they don't, where does that leave women?" she said. "Given the strong societal norms surrounding masculinity, it may be difficult for men to recognize or change their behavior." If men won't change their actions, then female supervisors may want to appear more proactive and less power-seeking to maintain smooth relationships in the workplace, Netchaeva said.

Mentally stressed young women with heart disease more likely to have reduced blood flow to heart

 

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Young women with stable coronary heart disease are more likely than men to have reduced blood flow to the heart if they're under emotional stress, but not physical stress, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014.

Compared to men of the same age, when subjected to a mental stress test, women:

• age 55 and younger had three times greater reduction in blood flow to the heart;
• age 56-64 had double the reduction in blood flow to the heart; and
• age 65 and older had no difference in blood flow to the heart.

"Women who develop heart disease at a younger age make up a special high-risk group because they are disproportionally vulnerable to emotional stress," said Viola Vaccarino, M.D., Ph.D., study author and chairwoman of Cardiovascular Research and Epidemiology at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta, Georgia.

Women generally develop heart disease later in life than men. However, younger women who have premature heart attacks are more likely to die than men of similar age. Risk factors, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, don't explain these mortality differences.

In the study, researchers gave a standardized mental stress test and, on a separate day, a traditional physical stress test (exercise treadmill test or pharmacological stress test) to 534 patients with stable coronary heart disease. For the mental stress protocol, patients were asked to imagine a stressful life situation and deliver a speech about this story in front of a small audience.

Researchers used nuclear imaging to take pictures of the heart while undergoing each of the two stress tests and while at rest. They also monitored heart rate and blood pressure during both mental and physical tests. Then, they analyzed the differences in coronary blood flow based on gender and age. In contrast to the large differences in blood flow observed with mental stress, there were no differences in blood flow with physical stress between women and men.

Young and middle-age women may be more vulnerable to emotional stress because they face considerable burden of stressors in everyday life such as managing kids, marriage, jobs and caring for parents, Vaccarino said. Biology may also play a role -- for example, a greater propensity towards abnormal blood vessel function during emotional stress, such as exaggerated constriction of coronary or peripheral blood vessels.

Healthcare providers should be aware of young and middle-age women's special vulnerability to stress and "ask the questions about psychological stress that often don't get asked," Vaccarino said.

"If they note that their patient is under psychological stress or is depressed, they should advise the woman to get relevant help or support from mental health providers, stress reduction programs or other means."

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by American Heart Association. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Women: Victims of conflict or agents of change?

 

Photo: Jodi Hilton/IRIN

Women often pay the heaviest price in disasters

DUBAI, 27 March 2014 (IRIN) - Women are the biggest victims in natural disasters and conflicts, yet they are also the most resourceful. Thus, aid agencies should do more to develop women as agents for change and development.
This is the takeaway message from this year’s Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development Conference & Exhibition (DIHAD), where hundreds of delegates from UN agencies, NGOs, donor agencies, regional organizations and Red Cross and Red Crescent societies gathered on 25-27 March to discuss women and aid.
The importance of giving women real decision-making power and leadership roles was also highlighted, as well as the need to support gender equality policies with adequate funding that would enable delivery rather than just paper commitments.
“It is women who most often bear the crippling consequences [of crises] - be they physical, psychological, social or economic,” Ertharin Cousin, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), told delegates.
The widespread use of rape as a weapon of war is just one indication that women are often targeted in conflicts.
In natural disasters, too, women and children are 14 times more likely to die than men, according to academic research. Oxfam reported that the 2004 Asian Ocean Tsunami may have killed four times as many women as men.
This is often linked to the pre-existing vulnerability of women in many societies and women’s tendencies to care for children and the elderly.
“It is time to break the silence that hurts forgotten women in forgotten places,” Cousin said. “We can do this by actively listening to women’s voices, and recognizing their challenges, by paying attention to their capacities as well as their needs.”
Women’s specific needs in crisis range from protection from sexual abuse to support in playing new roles as heads of households.
“Women have different and unique needs and sometimes a markedly different perspective on how to go about meeting those needs,” said HE Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi, United Arab Emirates minister of international cooperation and development.
Bint Khalid Al Qasimi was the first woman to become a government minister in the UAE. Instead of seeing women only as victims or recipients of assistance, she said, “we need to look beyond that and see them as agents of change, as brokers of peace and as deliverers of assistance.”
Maria Teresa Garrido, adviser for women and war at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), also cautioned against simple gender stereotyping.
“Women are associated with peace, tenderness… and men with war, to aggressiveness, to violence… but this is only a partial picture,” she said.
“These misperceptions really limit the way we express ourselves to men and women, the way we perceive them, and the way we work with them. Women are not only victims… they are also agents of reconstructing, of going ahead and finding answers to their situations.”
In fact, according to Claire Melamed, head of the Growth, Poverty and Inequality Programme at the Overseas Development Institute, women often have better survival strategies than men. In a January blog post, she described the argument that “women are always the most helpless victims in a disaster” as a myth.
Gender equality not just a human right
There are various reasons women’s needs and voices are often overlooked. Some aid organizations see themselves as “too busy” in an emergency situation to address women’s specific needs. Some argue gender is a longer-term development issue. Others say women-specific organizations are already mandated to deal with gender issues. Cousin also noted that much of the aid industry is driven by men.
But panelists argued gender is not just a question of equity: It is about increasing the chances of women and girls’ survival in moments of crisis. As such, Cousin argues: “Gender is everyone’s business.”
Several panelists focused on the role of women in tackling food insecurity, noting their important position as lead care-givers and, in many conflict scenarios, heads of households.
“Women are key to food security because their influence on the household livelihood is huge,” explained Mona Chaya, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)’s deputy strategic objective coordinator for resilience.
Six out of 10 farmers in Asia are women; yet “aid policies have long neglected women as food producers,” noted UN Messenger of Peace Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein.
Giving an example of a FAO-backed project in Chad, where women had been given resources to improve agricultural yield, Chaya insisted: “Gender is not a standalone issue. Rather it is an integral part of development work... It’s a tool for agricultural development and food and nutrition security in peace as well as in disasters.”
Mainstreaming
Fortunately, gender-targeted policies are increasingly becoming part of everyday programming, a point stressed by Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid & Crisis Response.
“In Europe our commitment to women and our commitment to aid come together… We are taking this issue of understanding needs of women very seriously.”
The humanitarian aid arm of the European Commission, ECHO, has recently adopted a new three-pillar policy on gender in humanitarian interventions, which includes mainstreaming gender awareness into all programming, targeted actions for women and capacity-building.
In practical terms, this includes everything from planning how to install lighting in refugee camps to cash transfers specifically targeted at women, as well as ways to build capacity among partners on gender issues and among women, so that they can better help themselves.

Photo: Kate Holt/IRIN

Women can play a crucial role in aid delivery

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), for example, has trained women in rural areas so that they can then create local disaster risk reduction mechanisms tailored to their own communities.
The UK Department for International Development is also introducing a requirement that all its development and humanitarian interventions - from drafting through to evaluation and monitoring - consider gender equality.
Others are also taking steps to mainstream gender programming. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Gender Marker, first piloted in 2009, is a tool that codes on a scale whether or not a humanitarian project is designed well enough to ensure both genders benefit equally from it.
Walking the walk
Georgieva added that it was important to “lead by example” and she said: “We need to see more and more women in the field… not only talking the talk but also walking the walk.”
Panelists stressed the importance of female staff at all levels of organizations, from the leadership down to the enumerators doing questionnaires with affected people.
A special effort must also be made to ensure the full participation of women in planning humanitarian responses, panelists said, as women often know best what their communities need.
“I don’t think we can afford to leave women out of decision making, learning, designing, budgeting - any of those steps,” said Farah Kabir, the executive director of ActionAid in Bangladesh, “because if we do, we are missing out on 50 percent of the perspective, 50 percent of the ideas, and we are not coming up necessarily with the practical solutions.”
This, however, must be done with care and with the simultaneous involvement of men. Otherwise, as Wendy Fenton, coordinator of ODI’s Humanitarian Practice Network pointed out, giving women power in the distribution of aid could actually increase violence against them.
Funding
As well as giving women meaningful leadership roles, consistent funding is also required.
“Everyone is talking about women’s empowerment, about gender markers, about helping women,” said Muna Abu Suliman, the founding secretary-general of Saudi Arabia’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, and now a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Development Programme.
“…In recent years there has been an increase in attention given to women and girls as agents of change and there are the commitments on gender equality. But the attention has not translated to funding for women’s organizations and actual wide-scale change.”
Funding is often fragmented and given in small sums, she said. Many organizations struggle to survive due to the short-term nature of their funding and even established women’s organizations with innovative models are unable to scale up their activities. Studies have also highlighted the need for more adaptable funding in complex emergencies, providing the flexibility to meet women’s needs.
Abu Suliman, an influential media personality in Saudi Arabia, urged Middle Eastern governments to direct their “very generous foreign aid and development work” towards “female causes and organizations”.
But Mukesh Kapila, a professor at the University of Manchester’s Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, was quick to warn that funding for women’s programming and women in leadership positions would not be enough so long as the societal structures that propagate women’s vulnerability remain unchanged.
In one effort to address this, IOM has trained police to be better able to stop human trafficking of women.
Still, “despite the greater attention that we have given to gender over the past 15 years, there is still a long way to go to ensure that humanitarian responses fully reflect the capacities, resources and needs of women,” Cousin said.