[zeroonetwothree]

Women have 2x the rates of depression as men. But is there any reason to think that 200 years ago it was even more so?

I think we overestimate the impact of external factors on our internal mental states. That's why the typical treatment for depression is CBT (literally changing your thoughts and behaviors) and not "improve your external situation".

[asdff]

At the same time, there's only so much to improve your external situation, especially if you are dealing with hard facts sort of situations (e.g. chronic health problems or terminal illness, poverty). If your source of depression is something external you can do something to improve, your therapist will definitely recommend you moving away from whatever that is (e.g. a toxic work environment or an abusive partner). The reason why we encourage cbt is that it gives you some tools in the mean time, as sometimes the external factors driving your depression are going to be difficult or impossible to change.

[ErikVandeWater]

> Women have 2x the rates of depression as men. But is there any reason to think that 200 years ago it was even more so?

That's interesting. I would have thought men would have it more since it's an abnormality, and with only 1 X chromosome, men are much more frequently abnormal.

When I said "If the state of women's rights around the world returned to where it was 200 years ago," I meant if women who currently had normal human rights lost them. In that case we would see a major increase in depression among women, the point being that depression would be explained much more clearly by genetic factors, even though the genes didn't change; the interaction between the genes and the world changed.

> I think we overestimate the impact of external factors on our internal mental states.

We definitely do. And the external factors that affect our happiness the most are often the least controllable.

[asdff]

I think that's in part due to the fact that women are an oppressed group in this world. Even in this country, the rhetoric used against women by certain politicians is abhorrant, and startlingly accepted by a huge swath of the population. There are politicians who want teenagers to carry their rapists baby to term; we've had a rapist president and now there's a rapist sitting on the supreme court bench. Then you have a huge swath of people who still believe in the patriarchal mid century views towards women, or who have raised sons who continue to believe that crap and saddle that behavior on their partners, perpetuating mistreatment just like how racism continues to be perpetuated. Minorities are similarly at higher risk for chronic depression than whites.