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Skyler Cotrell

Professor Tyler

ENG 1201

21 March 2021

Why are females more prone to anxiety than males?

Are you someone that struggles with anxiety or just has a higher stress level? Well with

the research that I have done I have learned that females are more likely to get diagnosed with

anxiety than males. I would like to know why that is, as a female that was diagnosed with

anxiety as a child and has very high stress and anxious personality now. So, why are females

more prone to getting anxiety than males?

While reading I learned that diagnosing an anxiety disorder as a mental disorder is a

newer thing. They started seeing anxiety as a mental disorder in the 20th century. When in the

19th century it was not even an illness. What is interesting is back in 106 BC to 43 BC, a Latin

Stoic philosopher named Cicero labeled anxiety which is called angor in Latin as a disorder.

Cicero wrote a book about how to free your mind of anxiety called “Peace of Mind”. Back in

Roman times, they thought anxiety was stemmed from the fear of death, so many philosophers

wrote that the way to treat anxiety was to think of the present and not think of the future. Two

competing philosophical schools Epicureanism and Stoics both had the same idea of teaching

how to rid of anxiety is to reach toward ataraxia which is the state of calmness.

During the Roman times, they put in record that anxiety was a disorder or an illness of

the brain but through the years, anxiety being an illness or disorder was off records. Many people

during the times of it not being on record of a disorder was being diagnosed with something

completely different. In 1621 Robert Burton wrote a book from everything about anxiety and
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depression up till the 17th century. In his book, he writes about cases from the Greek and Latin

records. In the 18th century and really all the up till that time everyone thought all anxiety and

depression disorders were caused by melancholia. Melancholia is not because of a disease but is

sadness caused by someone you love passing away, you see something sad or anything that

would make you upset.

Eventually starting in 1952 there were books created call DSM and that is the Diagnostic

and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. They kept making these books all the way up till

DSM-5 published in 2013. Each book goes into different mental disorders and especially the

growth of mental disorders through the years. The fifth and most recent one is about the three

different kinds of scales of disorders that share the same features.

There are many sources that prove that women are more prone to anxiety than men, here

are some topics that they believe are the reasons why. Men are not as prone to asking for help

when feeling anxious or stressed, whereas women will seek help for their anxious feelings.

Women are more prone to worry to prepare themselves for their future. Also, women in most

situations are the caregiver so they can have more anxiety balancing family and work. Men’s and

Women’s different hormones cause there to be a difference in their anxiety levels.

Women are more likely to seek help when it comes to them being anxious than men are.

But why is that, according to the American Psychological Association men believe they should

have a “real man” role and hide their emotions and succeed in success and power. Men also are

less likely to get diagnosed with anxiety or any mental health disorder because they mask it. Men

that are suffering from anxiety or depression are more likely to hide it with anger, cutting back

from what he loves to do. Men also are more prone to usually try to self-medicate with drugs and

alcohol making it hard to diagnose them. Here is a quote from American Psychological
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Association “about six million American men suffer from depression every year. Yet

psychologists know that men are far less likely than women to seek help not only for all mental-

health problems but depression in particular.” (APA)

Women worry more about their futures but are also usually the caregiver of the family so

them balancing work and family can cause anxiety. Jacinta Tynan quoted Huntley "Women feel

like they have to do everything or the wheels will fall off," says Huntley” (Tynan) By women

feeling like they have to do everything right balancing work, children, and a significant other and

them failing in one of those areas could cause women to stress and get anxious till it is fixed.

Jacinta Tynan also wrote “There are socially determined beliefs and expectations women are

responsible for everyone else's happiness and that it's all up to you and you don't look after

yourself as much as others” (Tynan)

Male’s and female’s hormones are different so that is one reason why females are more

prone to anxiety. NCBI wrote, “Females present elevated HPA axis markers at both resting and

stressed states” (NCBI 26). The HPA axis is what helps the response to stress. By females having

an elevated HBA axis even while resting that means females always have to fight, flight, or

freeze in the back of their head or they are always stressing about something even when they do

not know they are.

The misconception of this topic is that men are less likely to be diagnosed with anxiety

and also do not seek help. Like American Psychological Association stated men tend to hide

their mental disorders. Which could cause the true number of anxiety disorders diagnosed

between men and women to be wrong.

Honestly, there may not be an answer to why females are more prone to anxiety than

men, yes males do not seek help as much as women do. Yes, women seem to worry more, also
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being a caregiver and working can be stressful. But that is not enough to really answer why

women are more prone.

Work Cited
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Bahrami, Fatemeh, and Naser Yousefi. “Females Are More Anxious than Males: a

Metacognitive Perspective.” Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,

Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, 2011,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3939970/.

Crocq, Marc-Antoine. “A History of Anxiety: from Hippocrates to DSM.” Dialogues in Clinical

Neuroscience, Les Laboratoires Servier, Sept. 2015,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4610616/.

"generation anxiety." Sun-Herald [Sydney, Australia], 16 Aug. 2015, p. 12. Gale In Context:

Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A425501470/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=eb9b03f6. Accessed 21 Mar. 2021.

Marques, Alessandra Aparecida, et al. “Gender Differences in the Neurobiology of Anxiety:

Focus on Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis.” Neural Plasticity, Hindawi Publishing

Corporation, 2016, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4738969/.

“Men: A Different Depression.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological

Association, 2005, www.apa.org/research/action/men.