Pineapple Pizza

i

hate pineapple pizza i think that

it’s disgusting in that fruit and pizza

should not be together and rightfully so

the majority of the population agrees

with me

or at least i like to think they do

however i can’t help but feel just

a little bit bad for those who truly

like

pineapple pizza being such a highly

controversial topic they probably have

to think twice before

openly expressing their love for it

because if they do

they have a chance of being ridiculed

and shamed

and as silly as this sounds this is a

perfect example

of stigma my name is kayla

and today i will be talking about the

role of gender

and mental health stigma

so what is stigma

you might hear this word and vaguely

think back to your middle school science

class and think that it’s that

long stick inside of a flower however

the stigma that i want to talk about

today is a different kind of stigma

the stigma i’m talking about is defined

as a mark of disgrace

associated with a particular

circumstance person

or quality now

this isn’t a physical mark that actually

brands certain people

it’s an unspoken thing a negative social

attitude

attached to a person or group of people

and it aims to shame them for a

perceived difference

and there are many examples of stigma in

society

there’s stigma attached to being in the

lgbtq plus

community being of a particular faith or

religion

or liking pineapple on pizza

however one of the most heavily

stigmatized

areas in society today is mental health

our society disproves mental illness

we dismiss it as a weakness or a fault

in our personalities

i’m sure we’ve all heard that people who

are depressed are lazy

and those with anxiety are cowardly

and these false stereotypes only further

skew

our perception of what mental illness

actually is

contributing to the overall

stigmatization of mental illness

it affects people struggling with mental

illnesses by influencing

who they tell when they tell and even if

they tell

additionally stereotypes surrounding

mental illnesses

are often politicized people like to

assume that

those with mental illnesses are

dangerous and violent

when according to mental health.gov only

a small minority of those mental

illnesses

actually commit violent crimes and that

in fact

they’re ten times more likely to be

victims of one

making them a vulnerable population we

need to be protecting

instead of fearing

so in order to attempt to deconstruct

this discrimination that mental illness

faces we need to attack the root of the

problem

by deconstructing mental health stigma

mental health stigma is a very broad

topic

with many groups facing disproportionate

effects

but today i will just be tackling the

role of gender and mental health stigma

so if i were to very briefly explain

gender roles i would say that

men are seen as the providers of the

family

they’re supposed to be strong

independent and

overpowering whereas women are seen as

the caretakers and belong in the kitchen

and these might seem like outdated

stereotypes

but a study conducted by the gina davis

institute on gender and media

studied ads released from 2006 to 2016.

and they found that men were four times

more likely than women

to even have a presence in ads and had

seven

times the speaking time and furthermore

women were more than fifty percent were

fifty percent

more likely than men to be shown in the

kitchen

and these gender role portrayals in

commercialization

are just one aspect in our lives gender

roles are

everywhere now they’re ingrained into

our society

in fact a study conducted by professors

at queen’s university in canada

found that because of the stereotype

that men need to be

unemotional and because we relate help

seeking

to femininity in our society then

systematically

under utilize mental health services and

disproportionately experience mental

health stigma

we can see that right now gender role

portrayals

are starting to seep into our overall

perception of how to handle mental

illness within our culture

because according to the national

institute on on mental health

and 2015 only five percent of men

reported suffering from a mental illness

this hesitancy in acknowledging a mental

illness

will only make it worse we need to

remove this stigma

we need to remove the stigma in men

where

help seeking is discouraged because if

we fail to do this

not only will their mental illnesses get

worse but it can also lead to things

like

relying on substance abuse for

self-treatment

and mental health stigma among men not

only affects the likelihood of them

seeking help

but also the support that is available

to them

one such area support are medical

professionals

according to sociology professors

practitioners are less

likely to diagnose a man with depression

than a woman

even if their presenting symptoms are

similar

in another area support that is

negatively affected

by harmful men’s gender roles are

friends

and family and this can start as early

as middle school

in a study conducted by anita chandra a

senior policy researcher at the rand

corporation

it was found that girls were more likely

than boys to

turn to a friend for an emotional

concern

and as a whole boys had less experience

and knowledge when it came to mental

health

and the key factors in perpetuating

these outcomes

were parental disapproval and perceived

stigma

so as a whole the root of the problem

with mental health stigma among men

is the unjustified roles that they’re

placed in

because they’ve always been taught by

the media

their schools families and even their

friends

that they need to be this unemotional

and stoic being

they not only fail to help themselves

when it comes to mental illnesses

but they also fail to help those around

them

so in the same way that men avoid

treating their mental illnesses

because of the femininity that is

attached to health seeking within our

society

women experience stigma around mental

health conditions that are labeled as

male dominant and aggressive like

substance abuse

although research from the national

institute of drug abuse

tells us that men are more likely to

abuse drugs than women

dr tammy anderson from the university of

illinois chicago

says that a large part of research

with drug misuse between males and

females

were conducted under assumptions based

on gender roles

prior to the 1980s men’s and women’s

drug abuse

were viewed through a male lens and what

this means

is that almost all studies involving

alcohol and drugs

were conducted among men

however as research began to progress

and we began to see

and we began to see gender role bias

taken into consideration

it was found that women also a large

majority of women

also experience drug abuse

it was found that drug misuse and abuse

were more common

among female arrestees than male

arrestees

so this idea of drug

substance misuse being male dominant

that was perpetuated by

professional research made women

struggling with substance

misuse feel less accepted and heard

but even worse these stereotypes

actually fuel addiction

in both genders research finds

that addiction is related to an

individual’s quest to integrate

opposing gender scripts masculinity and

femininity

in an attempt to achieve wholeness

dr anderson explains that due to

rigid expectations of conformity to

masculine

and feminine identities identities in

early adolescence

this is correlated to an increased risk

in developing drug related identities

especially for women

again we see women bearing most of the

weight when it comes to gender

discrimination and drug research

so besides substance misuse it might

seem like

women can’t really face any mental

health stigma

because after all when it comes to

mental illnesses

women eat up the majority of the

population

more women than men experience

depression

women are two times more likely to

experience anxiety

anxiety disorders two-thirds of people

with dementia

are women eating disorders are more

common among women

and worldwide women actually are more

affected than men by ptsd

largely because they’re more exposed to

sexual violence

so after these statistics it may sound

like you can’t really experience stigma

if you’re so over represented over

representative

in a group but however we’ll soon be

able to see that the opposite is true

in an experiment conducted by james

worth and galen bodenhausen

they decided to study the stereotype

that we were just talking about

the stereotype being that images of

dangerous mental illnesses like violent

alcoholism

are more directed at men

so in their experiment they conducted a

nationwide survey

with volunteers from all different age

groups

and these volunteers were to read a case

history

of people studying people struggling

with mental illnesses

some read about ryan a male who was

your stereotypical alcoholic and some

write about

karen a woman who was showing all the

classical symptoms of major depression

and then some volunteers read switched

around cases

where karen was the alcoholic and brian

was the one

struggling with depression and

the idea was to see if the typicality of

brian and karen’s symptoms

or lack of it shapes the volunteers

reactions

and judgments and it did exactly that

as we often see is the case with women

named karen

people showed more anger and disgust and

less sympathy towards karen who was

depressed

than towards brian who was depressed

volunteers were also less likely to help

karen who is struggling from

a typical disorder of depression

and what this means is that because the

public views depression as such a common

mental illness within women

people are much more likely to treat

depressed women

with less sympathy and acceptance than

men

the definition of mental health stigma

so

after looking at state mental health

stigma as a whole

it might seem like this whole thing is a

lose-lose situation

men are suffering from it women are

suffering from it

everybody is suffering but

one of the first steps to deconstructing

mental stigma

is just by being aware of it because

going back to

the definition in the beginning we can

see that mental stigma

is socially driven

as you walk out of here today i hope

that you’re inspired to check in on your

friends

and discouraged from dismissing

someone’s mental health status

just because of preconceived notions or

stereotypes

because it’s the little things like

these where we could become more

inclusive towards some of the most

marginalized groups in our society

this is for the men struggling with

depression

the women battling substance abuse

and finally this is for the group

fighting

one of the most terrifying battles of

all

this is for my pineapple pizza lovers

thank you