"Moody Bitches"

According to psychiatrist Julie Holland women are naturally moody. In her new book, Moody Bitches, Holland notes that psychiatrists have increasingly and unfortunately chosen to medicate women’s emotions.

She begins by noting a point that, for some feminists will count as heresy:

WOMEN are moody. By evolutionary design, we are hard-wired to be sensitive to our environments, empathic to our children’s needs and intuitive of our partners’ intentions. This is basic to our survival and that of our offspring. Some research suggests that women are often better at articulating their feelings than men because as the female brain develops, more capacity is reserved for language, memory, hearing and observing emotions in others.

These are observations rooted in biology, not intended to mesh with any kind of pro- or anti-feminist ideology. But they do have social implications. Women’s emotionality is a sign of health, not disease; it is a source of power. But we are under constant pressure to restrain our emotional lives. We have been taught to apologize for our tears, to suppress our anger and to fear being called hysterical.

Holland then outlines the current situation:

At least one in four women in America now takes a psychiatric medication, compared with one in seven men. Women are nearly twice as likely to receive a diagnosis of depression or anxiety disorder than men are. For many women, these drugs greatly improve their lives. But for others they aren’t necessary. The increase in prescriptions for psychiatric medications, often by doctors in other specialties, is creating a new normal, encouraging more women to seek chemical assistance. Whether a woman needs these drugs should be a medical decision, not a response to peer pressure and consumerism.

The new, medicated normal is at odds with women’s dynamic biology; brain and body chemicals are meant to be in flux. To simplify things, think of serotonin as the “it’s all good” brain chemical. Too high and you don’t care much about anything; too low and everything seems like a problem to be fixed.

Holland has objections to the overuse of SSRIs like Prozac:

The most common antidepressants, which are also used to treat anxiety, are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (S.S.R.I.s) that enhance serotonin transmission. S.S.R.I.s keep things “all good.” But too good is no good. More serotonin might lengthen your short fuse and quell your fears, but it also helps to numb you, physically and emotionally. These medicines frequently leave women less interested in sex. S.S.R.I.s tend to blunt negative feelings more than they boost positive ones. On S.S.R.I.s, you probably won’t be skipping around with a grin; it’s just that you stay more rational and less emotional. Some people on S.S.R.I.s have also reported less of many other human traits: empathy, irritation, sadness, erotic dreaming, creativity, anger, expression of their feelings, mourning and worry.

She continues:

If the serotonin levels of women are constantly, artificially high, they are at risk of losing their emotional sensitivity with its natural fluctuations, and modeling a more masculine, static hormonal balance. This emotional blunting encourages women to take on behaviors that are typically approved by men: appearing to be invulnerable, for instance, a stance that might help women move up in male-dominated businesses. Primate studies show that giving an S.S.R.I. can augment social dominance behaviors, elevating an animal’s status in the hierarchy.

Were we to ask where these ideas come from we would have to face the fact that feminists have, for decades now, insisted that gender identity is merely a social construct.

Remember the feminist who explained that in order to get raises and promotions women must lean in. Why should they do so? Because, according to Sheryl Sandberg, that’s what men do.

Sandberg may or may not be right about men. In some cases they are more assertive than women. And yet, leaning in, which feels like getting in someone’s face, is certainly not the royal road to a raise or promotion, regardless of gender.

It’s not so much that women have been implored to act like men. Too often they have been encouraged to act like caricatures of men.

Holland’s point is cogent and well-argued. I am not, evidently, qualified to agree or disagree with her judgment about whether psychiatric medication is over-prescribed, but I suspect strongly that she is right.

Perhaps she mentions it in her book, but in her Times op-ed she should have explained how contemporary feminism has contributed to the problem.

After all, many of today’s psychiatrists are women. Many of them are feminists. Even many male psychiatrists consider themselves to be feminists. I am confident that there are very few Tea Party psychiatrists currently practicing.

The feminist culture influences the way women construct their lives and the way they behave. It influences their attitude toward their feelings. It has even influenced the way the therapy culture addresses women’s feelings.

Feminists have declared gender identity to be a social construct and have actively encouraged women to follow life plans that resemble those undertaken by men.

Surely, the pharmaceutical industry and psychiatrists (more and more of whom are women) are colluding in this enterprise by overprescribing medication for women’s emotions. But if the cultural environment is contributing to the problem, we must recognize that feminism has powerfully influenced the way women see themselves and the way they understand their emotions.

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