Gender Goggles Hour
May 19, 2010 - 4:31 pm
Irradiated by LabRat
Irradiated by LabRat
Story: Rate of Post-Partum Depression In Men Found to Be Similar To That Of Women
Feminist take: “Women, assumed to be driven crazy by female processes in their normal hysterical way, found to actually be normal”
Men’s rights’ activist take: “Men’s pain finally noticed”
Normal person’s take: “Losing a ton of sleep, all semblance of schedule, lots of money, a readily accessible social life, and sex found to cause high rates of depression regardless of gender. Who knew?”
This game is fun!
May 19th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Don’t forget caffeine overdosing. Nothing like having too much stimulant in your system so you can be at least partially functional to get your mind right.
May 20th, 2010 at 3:40 am
What’s next in the world of scientific breakthroughs? Beer makes you fat.
May 20th, 2010 at 6:03 am
Ya know the really sad part? We PAID for some turkeys to actually conduct that survey and ‘document’ their findings… sigh…
May 20th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
I’m not sure about depression, but postpartum psychosis is absolutely a real thing and it’s not just a matter of stress-a small number of women become full-on “receiving signals from our Martian overlords” psychotic after giving birth. I’m willing to believe that the psychosis, at least, really is due to the lady hormones.
Whether postpartum depression is a lesser step on the same continuum as postpartum psychosis, or is simply a result of stress, I don’t know.
May 21st, 2010 at 9:11 am
I know having a baby would sure as hell depress me. Hachacha!
It really does seem like there’s this thing in modern-day discourse where female moods and mental health issues have more to do with hormones and male issues are situational and understandable. When I’m feeling surly or emotional I tend to think of where I am in my menstrual cycle. I’m buying into it too.
Men have hormone fluctuations and chemical imbalances too, dammit. And women find themselves in depressing situations. Depression is really so seldom as simple as a single cause. A baby’s tendency to turn your life (and body) upside-down presents a constellation of possible causes.
May 21st, 2010 at 2:23 pm
I’ve always wondered if there’ve been any significant studies on post-partum depression in non-humans, and what (if any) effect the results of the studies might have on how we view it in humans.
I saw a baby gorilla at the Houston Zoo some years back who had to be taken from her mother after she was born. Her mother refused to nurse her, hold her, etc… but wouldn’t allow anyone who came near her to take the baby, either. Even people she trusted. People who fed her, did whatever else zookeepers do for them. If they tried to take the baby, Mom had a fit. They had to tranquilize her to take the baby out so they could feed her since Mom wouldn’t.
My ex-father-in-law had some snapping turtles, and one dug a hole and laid eggs. The eggs failed to hatch. The turtle wouldn’t come out of the hole, not even to eat. He eventually had to remove the turtle and get the rotting eggs out of there.
I’m guessing the turtle could just be a case of, “She just kept waiting for the eggs to hatch.” It seems odd to me, though, considering they were rotting. The gorilla, though, sounds like what I’ve been told true post-partum depression can be like. I say “true” simple because I think labeling every new parent who is tired and stressed as “depressed” is about as valid as labeling every four years old boy who runs around, doesn’t always do what he’s told, and likes toy guns as “ADHD with violent tendencies”. Maybe the gorilla was just being reasonably territorial, though. I only know it made me curious.
May 21st, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Hey… are we trying to draw a distinction between what happens with someone’s brain chemicals and what happens with their mind?
If you think about it that’s kind of funny.
May 23rd, 2010 at 1:10 pm
You know, for as much truth as may come from your entries under the tagline, “My Furious Genitals” isn’t as much fun of a subset as one might have hoped.
I’m just sayin’.
May 27th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Reminds me of a headline I saw a few years ago: “Viagara may help depression in women.”
My first thought was, “Well, yeah … “