Feminist mental health blog up and running
by Laura // 11 March 2008, 08:53
Crazy Like Us? looks set to be a really interesting project. nectarine begins by explaining some of the reasons why she wanted to set up a feminist blog on mental health:
When I first put the call out for this blog several of the women interested in contributing emailed me saying something along the lines of “I don’t talk about my mental health on my feminist blog because I don’t think anyones interested” or “I don’t know how people will react to it”
I think we are really wary of talking about this on our feminist blogs because mental illness is still too often seen by society, even feminists as weakness rather than an illness or a wounding and feminists are not supposed to be weak.I read over and over again on the internet that “feminists are strong independent women” To me as a woman with serious mental health issues and increasing physical health issues this feels both marginalising and silencing. What about those of us that are neither strong nor independant, does that make us not feminists? Does it make us bad feminists? Does the feminist community as a whole look down on us? Because really that’s what comes across when feminists are characterised like this.
Go read.
Founder of The F-Word, Catherine Redfern, has co-authored a new book with Kristin Aune. Find out more at the 
Yunus Yakoub Islam // Posted 11 March 2008 at 09:20
I worked in mental health twenty odd years ago, and unless things have changed radically, I would assume women are still significantly more likely to be hospitalised for mental health problems, heaps more women take minor tranquilisers than men, etc. - similar disparities applied to ethnicity as gender.