Inequality Affects Women’s Mental Health in Later Life

Written by Eunkyeong.....

A healthy life is crucial for all people. Human beings have to be able to live in a healthy and safe environment with an access to health care system, which provides mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically supports. As liberal feminists articulate, I believe that all human beings should have freedom of choice, and their own status in society. This means that all human beings should live free from inequalities. As people age, they are likely to experience more health problems. In particular, many older people suffer from mental health problems with aging. Indeed, the majority of sufferers of mental illness in later life are older women. This means that, as some of the main findings point out in the literature, older women suffer more often from depression and dementia than men in their old age. Milne and Williams (2000) note that because women are more vulnerable to discrimination and socio-economic disadvantages based on age, gender, and class in their early years, their later lives are harder. It is obvious that older women are discriminated against under the patriarchal system, so that older women live in an unequal society.

Indeed, our society has some concerns about older women. First, older women's groups which include visible minority populations are more vulnerable. Another problem is that older women's issues, such as poverty, housing, and older women-centered-care needs are still largely ignored by health policy makers and psychiatric professionals. There is few services to respond to their care needs. In addition, according to the authors, the previous literature does not have much information about the effects of inequalities on older people who have mental illness problems.

Minle and Williams (2000) identified that mental health problems as older women face today stems from inequalities: poverty, housing and living situation, marriage and home life, trauma and abuse, and health and disability. As might be expected, poverty is the biggest considerable risk factor for mental health problems. The authors prove that older women who lived in low-income in their earlier lives experience the highest levels of poverty in their later years. Low-income women may be disadvantaged in terms of fundamental necessities for a living (p. 703). As socialist feminists argue, such disadvantages for women are based on the capitalist society, which does not recognize women's domestic work as a valuable component of productivity. Domestic house work is not paid, and does not include pension. The biggest problem is poor women often experience lifelong poverty. Moreover, social isolation, loneliness, and living alone are great risk factors for developing depression or anxiety.

Secondly, according to the authors, marriage and home life factors make older women more vulnerable to mental illness. Older women, who had married and worked at home, compared to women who had worked outside of the home are more likely to experience depressive illness (p. 704). Presumably, women had low self-esteem due to their very little earnings with no benefits. In this case, they saw themselves helpless.

Further, trauma in terms of sexual experience in childhood or younger adulthood may also lead to depression. This means that a high prevalence of trauma affects older women suffer from mental illness than men. The cause of this trauma originates from an ideology constructed by men (p. 705). Radical feminists argue that in patriarchy, women's bodies are viewed as sexual objects. This means that male power in patriarchy controls society's members to look at women as sexual slaves. As some radical feminists argue, patriarchal society tolerates male violence against women as acceptable behaviour. This tolerance may have to develop that men control of women's bodies and to the use of women's bodies for pornography and prostitution.

All these risk factors based on low-income, low-self-esteem, and victimization affects many women's later lives, so that women have more mental illness problems. These accumulated inequalities may continue in the future because our society still treats women unequally although many women's group argue poverty for a long time. For example, women still work in low-waged workplaces, which have no benefit. Domestic house work is still not calculated as productive work in the Canadian tax system. In addition, our society's members often see only one type of woman who is skinny and sexy, which is constructed by patriarchy.

In order to change such a fixed moral standard of society's members, firstly, the previous failed policies should be shifted. In terms of older women with mental health problems, the society should consider whether women's income is adequate, and if they live suitably. In doing so, the society's members should accept the idea that social inequalities considerably affect the mental health of older women, and should take older women's issues by listening to older women without ageism. Although eliminating ageism is really challenging, a step towards hearing older women's voices is necessary. This is possible when health providers and professionals are trained, and ; policy is focused on older women with mental health problems. For example, professionals should help students recognize older women's issues. Particularly, it is important to encourage older women who have trauma to attend a woman's group so that they can share their experiences (http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy2.lib.umanitoba.ca/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=110&sid=60bb803d-cb3f-4085-a227-cdb0e13de60a%40sessionmgr110).

Today, older women especially women of visible minority and Aboriginal women are still poor. Unfortunately, many of them who have mental health problems had hard time for a living in their early years. They were poor, and suffered from low-income and hardship of life. For these reasons, older women are sufferer from mental health problems than men in their later years. Canada nationally faces these issues as big concerns today.