ithelpstodream:

excerpt:

“If girls say they are depressed, we owe it to them to listen. Furthermore, we can no longer afford to ignore the effect of a highly gendered culture on the mental wellbeing of girls. If we’re able to draw links between masculinity and high suicide rates in men, we can surely do the same with femininity and female despair.

If the past is another country, female adolescence is a war zone. Puberty transforms you into a walking target overnight. If you’re lucky, other girls get there before you and become your shields. Pity the girl who’s wearing a bra before she leaves primary school; already she’s ventured over the top, into a no man’s land of groping, cat calls and adult disapproval.

Girls need support in getting through this. They need coping methods. But they also need a different society, one which permits them to take up space, to express their fears and passions rather than internalise them. It should not be the role of mental health services to patch girls up and arm them to face another onslaught of patriarchal slings and arrows. There has to be a ceasefire. Girls shouldn’t have to be so brave.”

read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/mental-health-teenage-girls-quarter-rise-patriarchy-sexism-abuse-a7957441.html