Author Description

Books on women's health tend to have a polemical, 'how to' emphasis and to focus on single issues. This challenging new book looks at women's health more broadly. It mounts an argument as to why women experience more of certain health problems than men by referring to interconnected issues. These include an examination of how science, from the nineteenth century onwards, has seen women as 'sick' and as a problem: how psychological theory in general and Freudian views on women in particular disserviced women and their mental health; how the reality of women's lives are inimical to the development and maintenance of a robust sense of well-being.The starting point for the book is the clear evidence that women suffer more mental health problems than men. In the past there has been a pronounced tendency to explain women's madness by referring to the faulty functioning of women's bodies. All reproductive functions from menarche to menopause have been seen as pathological. For many years it was believed that mental distress in women could be reduced to some hormonal or other form of somatic derangement and treated by removing the offending reproductive parts. These essentialist views about women's 'nature' are scrutinised in the book. Astbury argues that the dominance of such views obscured until recently the effect that culture and women's social position had on their lives and mental health. The need for a new paradigm for looking at women's mental health is argued. Poverty, violence, low-status work, sexual abuse, harassment and discrimination, all exert an effect on women's health. Where relevant, women's writings will be cited to illustrate the difficulty women have had in attempting to be heard and understood when these dominant theories served to silence and repudiate them.