Self-silencing and women’s health: A review

Abstract

The connection between gender and health has intrigued health professionals in the last few decades. Silencing-the-self theory has brought a considerable clarity in this matter. After around three decades of the theory, the literature related to the theory has immensely flourished and has covered different branches of psychology. The aim of the present work is to provide a comprehensive picture of the qualitative and quantitative research findings that have connected self-silencing to health and well-being of women. This article presents a critical review of relevant articles. These articles have used the self-silencing theory as an explanation of women’s higher vulnerability to certain diseases as well as their experience with them. Self-silencing has been found to explain the gender gap in psychiatric disorders like depression, eating disorders and so on. It also influences the resilience and therapeutic effects among female patients with chronic conditions such as cancer, AIDS and so on. Moreover, self-silencing has also been found to be associated with women’s health issues such as pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder. The present study discusses the existing literature in a narrative manner along with suggesting some relevant research gaps that can be worth exploring in the future.

Perception of Menstrual Normality and Abnormality in Spanish Female Nursing Students

“…The multiple myths and taboos related to menstruation that are still present in our society today are likely to be negatively influencing women’s menstrual health [ 39 ] and can be explained in the context of a gender gap in women’s health as self-silencing [ 40 ]. Although several studies have focused on the fact that women do not consult professionals for menstrual problems, our study assumes that perceiving cycle abnormality is the first step before consulting a health professional.…”

A reformulated contextual model of psychotherapy for treating anxiety and depression

“…Suppression of automatically generated feelings can also result from a desire to help others. The personality scale silencing the self measures the extent to which a person's goals are suppressed in favor of the needs of others and is associated with poor mental health (Maji & Dixit, 2019) in particular when associated with adverse circumstances (Vaillancourt-Morel, Bergeron, Blais, & Hébert, 2019). Altruism can lead to people placing others' goals above their own and is positively associated with poorer mental health in people in caring professions (Dill, Erickson, & Diefendorff, 2016) as well as entrepreneurs (Kibler, Wincent, Kautonen, Cacciotti, & Obschonka, 2019).…”

The associations among self-silencing, ambivalent sexism, and perceived devaluation of women in Turkey

“…When the scale is examined, it is seen that each factor covers different social constructs, which reflect not only the pressure of others and descriptive/prescriptive stereotypes (e.g., women (should) sacrifice themselves) on women (Sakallı-Uğurlu et al, 2018) in intimate relationships but also the phenomenology of depression. Even though depression might be relevant to women's reactions to sexist behaviors and discrimination (see Maji & Dixit, 2019), in our opinion, self-silencing should be disconnected from depression. Supporting our argument, Hurst & Beesley (2013) have examined self-silencing and psychological health (e.g., depression) separately.…”