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Depression, Women, and “Mansplaining”

Like many psychotherapists’ practices, my practice is made up mostly of women, specifically women with depression. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, major depressive disorder is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States, and women are 70% more likely than men to experience depression. 

Although major depression can have a biological underpinning, this does not fully explain why depression is more prevalent in one gender. There must be interpersonal and societal factors involved; I recently witnessed a situation that illustrated those factors. 

 In line at my local battery store, I witnessed a female clerk trying to explain to a male customer that the new phone battery he’d purchased needed to be charged overnight. Each time she spoke, he said, “But that’s not what the guy at the phone store said. He said it only took a couple of hours.” 

She explained again that those instructions applied to a low battery on a daily basis but that a new battery needed a longer charge. She explained this several times and each time the man insisted she must be wrong. Finally, the man behind him (and in front of me) leaned into the conversation and repeated verbatim what the clerk had said to the man. “Oh, OK,” he said, now satisfied. 

When I got up to the counter, I asked her if she experienced this often as a female in a setting selling automotive and other batteries, and she replied, “All. The. Time.”  I told her that I’d just learned there is a name for this, “mansplaining,” and we shared a chuckle. 

The term was first used by Rebecca Solnit in a Los Angeles Times article. Recently in The Atlantic, Lily Rothman wrote that the term, while new, covered a phenomenon that has existed for at least 100 years.  The term has come to define, broadly, when a man speaks to a woman with the assumption that she knows less than he does about a given topic, even when it’s painfully obvious that she knows more or at least the same amount. 

Women are steeped in this phenomenon from birth. Their feelings, opinions, and desires are discounted and trivialized, and powerful men define their needs. Even educated women are not exempt from this: Years ago, in daily rounds on an inpatient psych unit of an academic medical center, I repeatedly witnessed this behavior when a resident would give a summary of a patient’s behavior over the past 24 hours. The resident’s summary was often countered by a female nurse who had received reports from the preceding evening and from night nurses. 

The attending physician unwaveringly would accept the resident’s account. As the clinical nurse specialist, I would remind the group of the nurses’ report; this attending would wait a beat and then continue. I would leave rounds and ask a colleague if I’d only imagined saying something, or if I didn’t reflect in the mirror that day. Although we laughed, it didn’t feel all that funny. 

What is enraging for some women is demoralizing for many. Can this be a societal reason for an increased prevalence of depression in women?  

But naming the phenomenon and even finding humor in it can diminish the power of “mansplaining.” Women can come to realize that, although they may not be able to change the situation on a societal level, they do not have to succumb to it, either. 

In a woman’s history, there is usually ample evidence of being discounted in one way or another—not just by men, but also by women who have adopted the societal norms. Exploring these scenarios with a patient can help her realize she is not defective. Furthermore, by naming the behavior, she can begin to overcome the depressing effects of feeling powerless. 

Do you see a place for exploring society’s tendency to discount women’s perspectives in your practice? Have you experienced “mansplaining”…or practiced it? 

References

1. Kessler RC, Berglund P, Demler O, Jin R, Koretz D, Merikangas KR, Rush AJ, Walters, EE, Wang PS. The epidemiology of major depressive disorder: Results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R). Journal of the American Medical Association. 2003 Jun; 289(23): 3095-3105.

2. Solnit, R. Men who explain things. LA Times, April 13, 2008.

3. Rothman, L. A cultural history of mansplaining. The Atlantic. November 1, 2012.

Leslie Durr, PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC is an advanced practice psychiatric-mental health nurse with a private psychotherapy practice in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the blog post author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Psych Congress Network or other Psych Congress Network authors.

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