The G(irls) 20 Summit delegates, Globe and Mail article, resonates with me. There is no doubt that the equality of women should be a joyous and wonderful thing celebrated by all women everywhere! But what is this meeting of delegates missing? Focusing entirely on women fails to address women’s equality and health. What? That’s crazy! Women and girls are facing inequality resulting in health disparities—shouldn’t we then focus on women? No, actually we shouldn’t.

Focusing exclusively on women is bad for the health of men and women. It fails to provide the necessary variety of perspectives about how gender interactions are contributing to inequality and how this could be addressed in a comprehensive manner.

There are negative consequences of societal gender expectations on all members of society. This includes the people, too often forgotten (at least in North America) who don’t fall into this fabricated gender binary. What about people who are not male or female? What does that mean? You know, people who identify as something other than male or female, including (but not limited to) gender queer people, transmales, transfemales, and intersex people. These groups of people are often ignored completely and face oppression to an exponential degree in comparison to women.

Imagine this. You’re suffering with mental illness and searching for your identity in a society that doesn’t represent you on the washroom label. You’re unsure of your gender identity because examples of others like you are lacking and your existence is denied in innumerable ways. How do you then go about treating your mental health issues (in a society poorly structured to deal with mental illness in the first place) or for that matter any of your other health issues that largely fly under the radar of most mainstream doctors?

Many trans people face a complex web of health issues (mental, sexual and physical health). This is further complicated by the lack of research pertaining to trans people and plausible solutions to the issues they face. A potential starting point for society to tackle this challenge is by backing trans-supportive organizations to take the lead on an international initiative with money and resources. Taking trans initiatives international has potential to provide insights about how other cultures treat trans people and how to improve our society.

But most importantly, we should be tackling the problematic gender expectations and we should be doing it in an all-encompassing/collaborative manner. That is, if we want to address inequalities and related health disparities successfully. Or we could continue attempting to separate inseparable social issues (gender inequality vis à vis males) and members of society (female, male, or gender queer) to create an illusionary solution for the illusionary “separate” issue.

–Holly Huntley

When I read the piece in the Globe and Mail about the G(irls) 20 Summit delegates, I was impressed. Kudos to Belinda Stronach and her Foundation for this innovative and necessary initiative.

Unlike the ongoing boondoggle involving fake lakes and public toilets well out of the reach of the public and denial of reproductive rights enjoyed by Canadian women to women in other countries, the Stronach initiative strikes the right notes.

Domestic violence, rape, the need for gender equality, the need for high quality easily accessible education, maternal health and well-being (including family planning) where all issues identified by the young delegates profiled in the Globe article.  Of course these are all issues that are too familiar with here in Canada as well – not to the same degree as in low and middle income countries but certainly in kind.  Guess what.  These are mental health issues as well.

Empowering girls and women and ensuring gender equality in all social, civil and economic undertakings are interventions that will spill over into mental health promotion and prevention of negative social and health outcomes.  This is an excellent way to address the social determinants of mental health – everywhere.

We have to do a much better job in this area globally and at home!  The mental health of nations must be built in part on national policies that promote and ensure the well-being of girls and women.  This is a task that we all must participate in.  I for one would like to see very piece of federal, provincial and territorial legislation reviewed to ensure that it promotes this agenda.  Sure we need mental health policies, programs and plans.  But we need a pro-gender equality framework that informs everything we do.

–Stan

Dr. Perri Klass writes eloquently about boys and girls and sex, and the importance of values, manners and gender equality.  As a child and youth psychiatrist I find much of what she recounts not only reasonable but reasoned.  There is however a developmental neurobiological reality that can help us put these sex and youth issues into a wider perspective.  Simply put, neurodevelopment prior to puberty has as its major goal the survival of the individual to the time of puberty so that species reproduction can take place.  As a result, the adolescent brain normatively develops its drive for sex and the associated dopamine driven nigro-striatal-cortical systems associated with craving (yes – the same system that allows for addictions to begin).  So there we have the phylogeny of the species.  So what now?

Every society develops social structures that serve to channel and direct sexual activities in youth.  And, because the brains of young people can be modified by the environment that they are in, by and large these social structures do modulate these behaviors, although sub-group and sub-cultural frameworks may not always conform to wider social norms and expectations.

So to be simple about it – young people will generally channel their sexual expressions within social expectations created by their environments.  Environment can be helpful or un-helpful in this regard.  However, while we may not be able to control the relentless process of pre-programmed neurodevelopment, we can provide behaviorally optimizing and socially enhancing environments for young people.  These begin within the family and include all aspects of values and behavioral expectations.  They extend outside the family and are taken up by our institutions and collective organizations.  They should extend to the media and the advertising industry.  The most interesting question for me is why they do not seem to.

~ Dr. Stan Kutcher

you can read the original New York Times article here.