Depression and gender – a genealogical perspective

The paper presented is based on my Master’s Thesis work in sociology, in which I have analysed Finnish self-help and guidance texts regarding depression from 1980's to the present. The perspective of the study rests on Michel Foucault's genealogical method and especially his way of analysing practices.

I approach depression as a phenomenon at present by interpreting the texts as part of a situation today, where depression has become a major public health problem, and where all kinds of feelings of low mood and lack of happiness have become understood as essentially treatable mental health problems. I try to illuminate depression from a perspective of governing one's own life and evaluating one's risks.

In this paper, I discuss some theoretical and methodological issues in analysing gender and depression. Depression has widely been interpreted to be statsiticaly more prevalent among women than men and the issue has thus been studied in feminist research to some extent as well. In the guidance texts I have analysed, various gender specific conceptualizations constitute different standings. In the paper, I deliberate how the historical changings in the forms of knowledege regarding both gender and depression interact in the guidance texts.