The Female Social Role and How It Causes Higher Rates of Depression in Women Versus Men

In 1972, psychologist Phyllis Chesler wrote that there was “a consistently large female involvement with psychiatry in America, an involvement that has been increasing rather dramatically since 1964.” (Chesler, p. 119) Unfortunately, this involvement has been increasing still since Chesler published her book. According to the National Institute of Health’s website, updated in September of 2010, more than 20 million people in today’s American society are suffering from depression and, more specifically, the number of women suffering from depression is twice that of men. The social role projected onto females in the United States makes women more vulnerable to depression and thus causes the rates of depression in women to be double that of men