The Netflix drama “Adolescence” has ignited urgent discussions about the ongoing crises facing boys and men, particularly in the context of mental health. As awareness grows, recent data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicates that English girls are among the sickest and unhappiest in Europe, prompting calls for a nuanced approach to the issues at hand.
Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, has recently voiced concerns about this ongoing discussion. She thinks that it might lead to a boys vs. girls separation which would really backtrack gains for everyone. We don’t want to pit boys against girls, because these are issues that are shared for every child,” she said. This tragic sentiment highlights the severity of today’s youth mental health crisis that is impacting all young people.
Research from the University of Manchester has pointed out that academically successful girls encounter specific additional pressures. Girls are high achievers in schools and tend to outperform boys. Yet this success brings intense pressures that take a toll on their mental health. New research published in The Lancet has found that there has been an overwhelming 65% rise in children placed on acute hospital wards in England. This steep increase raises critical mental health issues that have developed over the last 10 years.
Girls are particularly vulnerable in this landscape. Almost two-thirds of the 11-year-old English girls said they experienced more than one of these problems on a regular basis (at least two days a week). Alarmingly, English girls came bottom in terms of mental wellbeing of all 44 nations studied in the OECD report. The Centre for Social Justice has warned that democracy is at stake. Justice for women and girls In spite of all the advances in women’s rights and extraordinary accomplishments over the past century, it appears that boys today risk being left behind.
In all educational settings, girls are systematically doing better than boys from nursery all the way through university. This success has not protected them from the deterioration experienced by the society more generally. Young men age 16-24 face consistently higher unemployment rates than their female counterparts, though the gap is narrowing. Despite succeeding in landing positions, men make approximately 9% of what their female counterparts do. According to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, men’s earnings remain largely unaffected by parenthood, contrasting sharply with women’s experiences.
As a result, the NHS has seen a record increase in teenage girls being admitted to hospitals following self-harm episodes. In the last ten years, the total of yearly admissions for eating disorders for girls aged 11 to 16 has suddenly spiked. It jumped from 478 to a shocking 2,938. This alarming jump exposes the deepening youth mental health crisis. Girls are disproportionately impacted by the harmful effects of social media, as they are four times more likely than boys to experience eating disorders.
Dr. Elaine Lockhart, a leading researcher on adolescent mental health, points to the crisis in alarming terms. She cautioned that the girls we are currently seeing are just the tip of the iceberg. Thousands more remain in quiet distress — battling anxiety or depression — on your campus. She’s quick to add that this doesn’t mean boys don’t have challenges, too. We need a little more attention to the fact that boys are having a tough time as well. He argued that emotional disorders and behavioral issues manifest differently within each gender.
The interaction of gender and mental health is complex. Dr. Lockhart posits that societal perceptions may contribute to this disparity: “I wonder if part of this is that girls and women are more likely to present with emotional disorders and boys with behavioral problems – it is the same two sides of the same coin.” As the discussion around mental health continues to develop, it’s important to understand those complexities without pitting one gender against each other.