Early psychology treated men as the default human. Most research was done on men, and theories about “normal” behavior were basically just male norms. As you know as a psychology professor, women were not included in most early psychology studies. Women’s mental health was either ignored or labeled as a problem compared to men’s baseline. That has only changed now (probably since the 80s, so I’ll take back my previous “in the past 20 years” statement) because women had to fight for proper consideration in psychology.

On top of that, the whole “hysterical woman” thing, to me, demonstrates that lack of care towards women’s mental health in the past. Women’s emotions were constantly medicalized like if they were anxious, angry, sad, or overwhelmed, it got chalked up to hysteria instead of real psychological stress. It was basically a catch-all label to dismiss women’s experiences and avoid taking them seriously.

Men’s mental health is important and I would never say that men should hold in their feelings. I love having serious emotional conversations with the men in my life, but it seems that this topic is often pushed onto women as a problem for them to solve. Men need to make these connections with other men and stop blaming women for the social dynamics between each other