What's So Depressing?

Women are twice as likely to be depressed as men, writes Dennis Prager.

If that’s true, then maybe we should do something about it.

But first we have to ask: Why?

Is is patriarchal oppression? Is it the glass ceiling? Is it the lack of affordable child care?

Prager is a conservative, so he’s more likely to suggest that the problem is liberalism. And so he does.

One of the things we’ve done, as ordered by liberals, is to end the traditional culture that pressured men to curb their natural instincts for rape and violence. But we have also curbed the tradition that pressured women to curb their feelings.

Societies and parents also always knew that it was imperative to teach girls to control their natures — in particular their predilection to be ruled by their emotions. Women who allowed their emotions to rule them not only became destructive (to members of their families first and foremost), they became unhappy women.

Then, of course, women have been encouraged to curb their feminity, the natural modesty and chastity of women. Most women, I have noticed, return to femininity as they get older, taking a joy in children, pretty things, and the day-to-day texture of life. But for many, the lost years of “You Go Girl” can never be replaced.

On top of all that is the dearth of “men.” There are plenty of boys around, boys of all ages, on account of the fact that boys aren’t taught to control their boyishness.

You add all this together and what do you get?

[M]any women, untrained in subduing darker aspects of their natures, deprived of the female joy of femininity and increasingly deprived of men (as opposed to boys), are feeling the brunt of these losses. They call it depression.

Could it be? Or is the problem still that women are underrepresented in the sciences and technology?