Depression and Gender Stereotypes

Posting Date: 08/25/2003

Stereotypes Prevail in Media Coverage of Depression

The media?s coverage of depression has changed dramatically in the age of Prozac. Articles are now far more likely to depict women?s mental issues in relation to gender-stereotyped roles rather than in medical terms. But descriptions of depression in men have not shifted in the same way.

Newswise?A new analysis of the media?s coverage of depression, anti-depressant drugs and related issues over the past 15 years shows a significant shift in how newspapers and magazines portray mental health problems.

Instead of describing depressive illnesses in terms of specific symptoms and medical terms, as they did when the era of Prozac began in the late 1980s, the printed news media are now far more likely to depict women?s mental issues in relation to gender-stereotyped roles, such as marriage, motherhood, and menopause. But during the same time, descriptions of depression in men have not shifted in the same way.

The new findings, made by researchers at the University of Michigan Depression Center and just published online by the journal Social Science & Medicine, show that gender stereotypes increasingly pervade popular media discussions of mental illness.

From women?s magazines to the health section of the daily paper, the study shows a shift toward the ?medicalization? of deviation from women?s traditional roles, and the increasing description of mental illness in emotional, not medical, terms. Meanwhile, men?s depressive illness was increasingly described in terms connoting work, aggression or athletics.

These findings surprised the study?s lead author, Jonathan Metzl, M.D., Ph.D. Even though the 1980s and 1990s were a time when women?s roles in society were firmly rooted in both the workplace and the home, the media?s coverage of women?s mental health focused increasingly on the latter.

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