Towards a gender and generational analysis of mental health. (The Malaise of Gender).

Applied gender studies already have contributed to the field of mental health, specifically in understanding how inequitable living conditions established by a patriarchal society affect middle-aged women. This discipline revealed the links between living conditions and mental health problems and encouraged the application of a gender perspective to other age groups and their issues: children, adolescents, young adults and older persons.

This article proposes to present some general observations on the relationship between gender and generation, focusing on the age group most frequently seen in clinical practice: adults of both sexes between 25 and 40. In this effort, I will utilize observations from my clinical experience as well as information gathered during my many years teaching university classes on gender and psychology.

Since 1997, the Department of Psychology of the Universidad de Buenos Aires has offered a very popular introductory seminar on gender studies. As this course is an elective, the students who take it are already sensitive to gender perspective. However, they find that most of the material fails to reflect the realities of their lives. The experiences of young adults have not yet been incorporated into gender perspectives on mental health.

The following analysis will examine young women and men from the urban and predominately, although not exclusively, middle and upper-middle classes.

These individuals were raised to work and love in a more democratic fashion than the previous generations. However, they became adults at a time in which employment is scarce. In addition, marriage is no longer the only model for a mature and satisfying emotional life.

Identity and values are learned from a very early age, and gender studies reminds us that an individual's self-image is also intimately linked to the cultural paradigms of her/his historical period. The young people of today were raised with the values of one age, but live in another in which gender roles have changed very rapidly.

The nuclear family is no longer the only acceptable model for the family structure. One positive aspect of this change is that having a family is no longer a requirement for proving that one is a healthy adult. However, despite the changes in social values, young adults who were raised in these family structures may still yearn to reproduce these patterns in their own lives. The resulting contradiction between values and desires is the source of considerable distress.

Emotional relationships also have changed. In their parents' generation, the model of courtship was based on very different roles for women and men. Mutual attraction between the sexes was assumed to arise from the great differences between women and men, from the completely opposite but complementary female and male worlds, as common metaphors suggested: la media naranja (the other half of my orange), el anillo para el dedo (the ring for my finger). By contrast, for the contemporary generation of young adults, courtship and attraction are based on affinities and shared interests rather than differences.

All this is quite significant for clinical treatment from a gender perspective. We must not only pay attention to issues of equity and power relations between the genders, but we must accept that an individual's capacity to produce or to love is not measured by having a job or a family of her/his own. This is a significant departure from mental health criteria based on values and possibilities of a previous era.

At the same time, the present generation of young people may pursue surprisingly traditional and conservative lifestyles. This is not necessarily cause for alarm: it may be a new way of dealing with the hopelessness of our times, a search for meaning in a time in which contracts (work, love, friendship) and associations with institutions are more fragile.

At the same time, these young adults are often the heirs of extremely liberal parents' much-longed-for expectations of democracy and gender equity.

By examining three criteria often used to evaluate mental health, we can gain considerable insight into the realities of young adults today:

1. How the confrontation between the generations is resolved--for this generation, this confrontation is generally based on disengagement from and saying "no" to the parents.

2. Work (the ability to produce); and

3. Love (the ability to feel pleasure).

Redefining these criteria allows us to better understand the problems that young adults confront and to develop proactive tools for mental health care.

1. Resolving the Confrontation Between the Generations

In order to resolve the conflict between the generations, young adults must first disengage themselves from the parental authority.

Freeing themselves from their parents allows young adults to establish their own link in the generational chain. It allows them to incorporate what they have received, value what they have gained, and develop the ability to give and receive. This also will enable them to freely choose whether or not they wish to be mothers or fathers, side-stepping the social mandate and transforming an obligation into a personal possibility for giving, embodying and transmitting values.

Today, in addition to the psychological effort implied in untangling themselves from their parents, young people's lives are further complicated by the uncertain realities of employment For many young adults, independence from their families may put them at risk of dropping down a rung on the socio-economic ladder. The price of maintaining their socio-economic status may be to remain "children" for much longer than they want or may be able to endure.

As the threat of social exclusion grows, independence from the family is perceived as quite dangerous, and the temptation to stay is more powerful than the reasons for leaving.

However, in our clinical work, we should not confuse this phenomenon of an "extended" period of living in the parental home with dependence on the parents.

A young adult may live in her/his parents' home without ever being embroiled in a war between the generations and at the same time maintain a healthy and autonomous self-image.

This may be a new way of passing from adolescence into adulthood, an experience radically different from the transition described in the psychology manuals with which we were trained. Young adults need recognition and independence, but these essential elements can be obtained through a variety of means, not only though confrontation. Recognition does not necessarily mean independence but interdependence. Young adults may abandon the hierarchical roles to participate actively in a relationship--in this case, an inter-generational relationship--of mutual recognition. This need for recognition should not be misinterpreted as dependence but as a mutual need for a relationship that involves both parties.

This perspective is important for gender studies and mental health because it explores the psychological bond between the powerful and the impotent. The logic of the schism, with its dualism, polarization and simple inversion of roles, must be questioned and this new perception introduced into in all our clinical dealings involving any asymmetrical relationships, be they generation, gender, class, ethnicity, etc.

Some of the most common issues among mothers and young adult daughters include the following:

1) Some more traditional mothers wish they had daughters who were both more modern and at the same time just as traditional as they were. Generally, these mothers are confused, disappointed and ashamed by the changes in their daughters' lives. Our clinical work with adult daughters aims to facilitate their efforts to recognize the value of their lives, beginning with their mothers' failure to recognize this value. Paradoxically, these young women who suffer from their mother's disapproval in turn criticize their mothers for being stuck in traditional roles in an era in which modern women are valued by society.

2) Other traditional mothers who had no opportunities themselves wanted to have innovative daughters like their more advanced peers. They are happy with the achievements of their daughters whom they have taught: "Don't be like me." However, this paradoxical mandate does not provide a role model for their daughters. Part of the work with these young women focuses on finding socially-valued role models of women outside their immediate family with whom they can identify.

3) More innovative mothers provide models of women with whom to identify.

Young adult men have different issues with their fathers:

1) Some fathers who have tried to transmit a model of masculinity linked to the work ethic, hard work and solidarity, but feel confused by their sons' desire for instant power and greater concern for themselves than for others.

2) These young men also demonstrate a desire for their father's recognition and a participation in their lives compatible with traditional paternal values, but not with the concrete experience of the paternal role centered on being the economic mainstay of the family rather than an emotional presence. The emotional distance from their fathers leads to difficulties for these young men in expressing emotions, and especially with other men.

When these young adults decide whether or not to become parents themselves, we introduce the next link in the inter-generational chain. Among the young women, we must pay special attention to those whose "biological clocks" are running out as they near the end of their prime reproductive years. We should ascertain whether or not they have been able to evaluate the role of motherhood in their life goals. In our therapeutic work with these women, we must determine whether the decision to not have children is a personal choice or if they are obeying the maternal mandate "don't be like me" to the extreme.

Young men should be helped to build identities that allow them to exercise a new type of fatherhood that goes beyond the provider role and includes emotional participation as a caregiver who can respond to their children's daily needs. For the most part, these new identities must be invented from scratch because most of these young men have no models for such behavior in their own fathers' type of paternity.

2. Work (The Ability to Produce)

Young adults today can no long build their identities on their work nor focus solely on developing their productive and creative abilities. They were raised to do so, but today's realities have made this professional identification and dedication impossible due to changes in the labor market and the large numbers of unemployed.

This economic reality has a special impact on young men's gender identity due to the crucial role of work in the acquisition of male social identity. In this respect therapeutic efforts should be undertaken to help young men develop gender identities which are not based solely on the image a single, life-long job? Now that stable employment has been replaced by increasingly "flexible" labor conditions, it is unlikely that this generation will be able to keep the same job their entire lives. Efforts should also be made to help young men recognize the personal growth possibilities of participating in charitable activities, which contribute to society but are not traditionally considered work.

On the other hand, this same generation of women has been encouraged and trained by their families and society to be more independent and more active citizens as a result of their access to the labor market. Unlike earlier generations, the working world has allowed these young women to join. But once on the "inside," women workers find that the labor market primarily values male abilities and the male approach to work. Women's performance and dedication are measured according to masculine standards, which demand that women prove that their capacities, despite their sex. Working women may been be urged to give up their private lives as work demands a level of dedication that is incompatible with romantic relationships or family responsibilities. These situations place women in conflicts that undermine their mental and physical health.

Another important factor for our psychotherapeutic efforts is the idea that for a woman to stand out, she must prove that she is better than a man in order to get the same job. This effort to be better than a man may respond to a paternal ideal related to the selection of a career and the fulfillment of job responsibilities. Being a daddy's girl today can lead women into a desperate race for a position that their fathers want more than they do. We must pay special attention to this situation because we might confuse the exercise of women's right to professional ambitions with the conflicts of a woman-girl striving to satisfy her parents' ambitions in order to ensure her place as the favorite child.

3. Love (The Ability to Feel and Enjoy Pleasure)

The following section will examine gender differences and the possibility of heterosexual love in a time in which the asymmetry between the genders is diminishing.

The closing of this gender gap means that young, urban women today are unaware of the hierarchical differences that still do exist between women and men because they live in socio-historical conditions of greater equity. Love provides a privileged space for measuring how far we still have to go to achieve true gender equity.

Young adult women's belief in the illusion of equality in relationships is based, in part, on their father's double standards for their wives and their daughters (Volnovich, 2000). Daughters are allowed access to opportunities denied their mothers' generation: young women today are encouraged to succeed, to drive cars, to have their boyfriends spend the night, to discuss politics and football (which in our region are male purviews par excellence) and to voice their opinions, rights their mothers have not yet gained.

Nevertheless, this new flexibility in fathers' attitudes towards their daughters coexists with a reaffirmation of the generational differences between daughters and wives and a failure to recognize some of the individual rights of their daughters. Daughters have trouble visualizing this simultaneous recognition/failure to recognize, a coexistence they clearly perceive in the evolution of their later romantic relationships, linked with their partners' failure to recognize them as individuals in contradiction to their positive self-image.

In clinical psychology, we often see young women who are involved in unsatisfactory relationships which merely fulfill their need for companionship. It matters little whom they are with, they just need to "have a boyfriend" to reaffirm their self-esteem. Women without partners are perceived by society (and indeed by themselves) as not deserving to be loved. In addition, these companions sometimes function as "counterphobic objects" to defend the women from the uncontrollable erotic fantasies which would surround her if she were to circulate in public without a male companion.

When these women perceive that they are attracted to a companion primarily to not be alone, they realize that they are unable to choose their partners. This makes them extremely unhappy and causes serious problems of self-esteem.

A second problem that we see is a romantic choice that some of us call "falling in love with the hero" (Tajer, 2000). These men represent the ideals of autonomy, development and freedom that the woman wants for herself. Women who fall in love with "heroes" are ready to do anything to help these men triumph, under the motto: "Your cause is my cause." A superficial evaluation of these couples may misrepresent them as partners and equals dedicated to the same cause. In reality, these relationships are often variations of hero-worship, of romancing an ideal, a form of psychological masochism (Benjamin, 1996).

We also find that some women give up on the possibility of love when they grasp the contradictions between their aspirations for autonomy and the dependence implied by love. They feel unable to have satisfying relationships and are unwilling to expose themselves to further disappointments.

However, the men of their generation no longer choose women who do not have a profession or personal interests. Young adult men are also unwilling to be the sole economic and social mainstay of their partners and future family.

But despite these positive changes, men still wrestle with contractions between today's greater equality in sex roles and the patriarchal traditions in which they have been raised.

This reveals how a "psychological agreement" can be struck between two different and contrary ideas. In this case, the symptoms of the new and the old may be expressed in what might be called a "Pygmalion complex," the fantasy of creating a woman in their image.

These men decide to fall in love with ambitious, working women, but the women's development must always be one step behind their own. (2) This makes them feel like gentlemen who can offer their ladies a hand to help them "forge the river," to hoist out of the mire of ignorance and teach them "the facts of life." They must always prove that they are better than women in order to feel like men; losing their masculine identity frightens them the most because it would mean ceasing to exist.

This is a very painful process for young men. Unlike their forefathers, most men of this generation really do not believe that women are inferior. But they still need to prove their social superiority to reinforce their sense of desirability and to enjoy their partner's companionship.

Despite these difficulties, this generation is quite different in the way it perceives falling in love, in the way these men talk about their partners, in the rights that they recognize in their partners, and in the way they see relationships as real opportunities for mutual pleasure and enjoyment free from feelings of entrapment or possessiveness.

Applying a gender perspective to certain characteristics of the mental health of young adults sheds light on a population group which has not been the focus of such studies. It also seeks to encourage proactive clinical work with young adults of both sexes that will open the way for happier, freer and more democratic individuals, here and how.

Notes

(1.) I previously explored the relationship of male identity to lifelong employment in an article written at the beginning of Argentina's neoliberal economic transformation. See D. Tajer, 1992.

(2.) For example, she may have a lower-status job or profession; if they work in the same area, he will always have a better position or earn more money.

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The author, a clinical psychologist, received her doctorate in psychology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. She is also adjunct professor and researcher in Gender Studies in the UBA Psychology Department, and General Coordinator of the Asociacion Latinoamericana de Medicina Social (ALAMES, Latin American Association of Social Medicine) and coordinator of the ALAMES Red de Genero y Salud Colectiva (Gender and Collective Health Network). She is also a co-founder of the Gender and Psychoanalysis Forum of the Psychiatrists Association of Buenos Aires and past Assistant Coordinator (1994-99). She has also served as consultant to the Argentine government's National Committee on Women.