Women and Mental Health

Last week I explored LHSA’s holdings of women’s health materials, and was particularly struck by the Cervical Smear Campaign and Women’s Health collection (GD31). As it’s World Mental Health Day, I thought it would be apt to share what I found in the collection.

The material I was most interested in in GD31 was about an Edinburgh-based feminist mental health project called Head On. Head On was supported by the Scottish Association for Mental Health and was set up as a core part of the Scottish Women’s Health Fair, which took place in Edinburgh in May 1983. The Fair was organised by a group of local women with the backing of the Scottish Health Education Group (SHEG - a civil service department of the NHS), and coincided with a conference on ‘Women and Health’ which was held in Peebles (organised by the World Health Organisation and SHEG). It aimed to take a wide-ranging look at factors affecting the health of women in Scotland and encouraged local participation and input from women’s organisations and groups across Scotland.  The Fair took place at venues across Edinburgh, and involved stalls, exhibitions, workshops, displays, films and discussion groups.   

Scottish Women's Health Fair committee members as pictured in a clipping from the Edinburgh Evening News, May 25^th 1983 (l - r front: Bernie Graham, Sarah Boyle, Jane Jones, Ginnie Morton; l - r back: Jean Malcolm, Sheila Lochiel, Fay Jacobson, Penny Richardson)

The Head On project wanted to help women become more responsible for their own well being and mental health and to increase awareness of the politics of mental health for women. The holdings we have for Head On consist of meeting minutes, correspondence, planning notes and lists, newspaper clippings, copies of medical articles and journals, and leaflets and booklets made by the women in the organisation. 

Booklets written by members of Head On titled ‘Women and Depression, ‘Women and Anxiety’, ‘Women and Food’, ‘Women and Pills’, ‘Women and Sexuality’ and ‘Women and Smoking’ (GD31/14/1)

Head On’s constitution, which was drafted in 1984, states that the organisation’s objectives were to “set up projects and programmes designed to help women become more aware of their own mental health”, “to educate and inform the public, social services, the media and others with respect to women and mental health”, “to act as a liaison between, and support of, those working in the field of women and mental health” and “to cooperate in appropriate research”. The constitution also highlighted that membership is “open to all persons who are sympathetic to the association’s objectives”. A line found in Head On’s meeting minutes from June 2nd 1983 expresses that Head On “can mean different things for us all but at the heart it stands for our individual shared experience which enables us to reach out across differences to others and to feel better about ourselves”.

The work that Head On carried out in the 80s is still relevant and urgent today. According to a December 2012 Health Inequalities report by AuditScotland, more than twice as many women are consulting GPs for depression and anxiety as compared to men, with those living in the most deprived areas having lower overall mental well-being and more GP consultations for depression and anxiety than those living in the least deprived areas. This echoes the sentiments expressed by the women at Head On, who asserted that “if you are a woman you are more likely to experience depression, have tranquilisers prescribed, or be admitted to a psychiatric hospital than if you are a man”.

A Head On booklet, copies of which were distributed at Scottish Women's Health Fair events, held at the Roxburghe Hotel in Edinburgh's Charlotte Square  (GD31/14/2)

The organisation’s earliest projects consisted of two health events, one being a ‘Women and Health Day’ which was held at Edinburgh’s still-existing Workers’ Education Association in 1982, and involvement in the Scottish Women's Health Fair in 1983. These events were primarily targeted at women, but attracted and welcomed people of all genders, including their children. Talks and workshops on women’s mental health were held at these events, and literature written by the group was distributed.

In order to raise funds for their events, Head On organised parties such as the ‘GLITTER GALS DISCO’, which took place at Edinburgh nightclub Buster Brown’s, and charged a £1 entrance fee. Head On’s health fairs and fundraisers were planned through monthly meetings which were open to the public. A mailing list was also created which distributed information, meeting summaries and newsletters to members. During their meetings, the women of Head On delegated tasks to one another, discussed venue hire, drafted applications for funding, presented educational literature and illustrations which they had created to be sold at their events, distributed copies of medical reports and journals concerning women’s health, and most importantly, shared their personal experiences with one another.

Women sharing experiences at a Head On workshop in 1988

Below are some examples of the experiences that women shared at Head On’s meetings:

“We felt we were constantly under pressure to be good at everything, women must be the carers and the experts… there are expectations and assumptions that women will care. We are now seen as a resource by the state. Daughters take over the care of elderly parents, very seldom sons. Society expects women’s natures to be soft, nurturing, emotional, and mothering… Women give emotion but how do they receive it back?” - November 9^th 1982

“It is considered a virtue to keep the home spotless. The pressure and the expectations are there all the time. Women should do this and is considered failing if she cannot. Here enters conflict. Her identity depends on doing the job well. She feels she should be at home, but would often rather be doing something else. Many times she feels unfulfilled. She feels unrecognised and underpaid.” - November 18^th 1982

The meeting notes which I found most poignant were from January 6^th 1983. When the committee asked the women at the meeting what wanted out of life they replied with, “I want peace to be myself”, “I want total economic freedom”, “I want strength to be me”, and “I want to have personal confidence”. When exploring solutions to these wants and desires, some women expressed that “I need enough physical and mental strength to be independent” and “I need to assert myself”. My favourite solution came from a woman who suggested listening to Diana Ross’ “I want muscles” or Joan Armatrading’s “I am a woman”.

Head On meeting notes January 6^th 1983 (GD31/10/2/1)

As well as an invaluable record of Head On's own activities, the papers collected by members are a fascinating source of information on grassroots women's health initiatives that existed in parallel, two examples of which particularly stood out to me.

One key example is in evidence of the response to the Scottish Home and Health Department's censorship of a Scottish Health Education Group (SHEG) booklet, Well Woman: A Guide to Women's Health. The Well Woman booklets were to tie in with a BBC women’s health radio and television series of the same name. However, SHEG were asked to withdraw the booklet by the Scottish Home and Health Department, following complaints from a number of Medical Officers of Health across the country. Officials felt that the booklets, which explained how the female body works and dealt with topics such as menstruation and contraception, were “overly concerned with sexuality”. This caused national outrage, landing media coverage from outlets such as The Scotsman and the Guardian, which we know about thanks to clippings kept inside the papers of Head On.* 

Another women's health initiative reflected in the Head On papers is the Women's Health Shop, which operated from February 1983 to June 1984 on the Royal Mile, funded by the Cancer Research Campaign and the Edinburgh Council for Social Service.** The Shop put on displays, held talks and workshops, produced feminist literature of women’s health, and became a meeting place for women to talk to women about women’s issues. Some of the talks and workshops held at the Shop had to do with the ways that menopause, benefits cuts, breast and cervical cancer, pregnancy and motherhood, and nutrition and stress affect women’s mental health. The shop also facilitated self-help groups to meet, providing a space to share experiences of depression and anxiety with other women over coffee. Additionally, women were invited to view the Shop’s monthly displays, which advised how to eat healthily on a low budget, how to make their needs known to their doctors, and how to conduct self-examinations for breast cancer. A female nurse was also available to lend a sympathetic ear for any health worries or anxieties that the women wanted to discuss – this was especially important because many women didn’t feel that their mental health issues were important enough to discuss with their doctors who were largely male. A range of books and resources on women’s health were also made available for loan at the shop.

Although Head On is no longer in action, there are plenty of resources on mental health available online at  Scottish Action on Mental Health, CAPS Independent Advocacy, The Health Foundation, Mind, Time to Change and Rethink. If you or someone close to you is struggling with mental health issues, please get in contact with your GP.

Samar Ziadat

* For an account of the controversy around the Well Woman booklets as well as a thorough account of the formation and significance of the Scottish Women's Health Fair, see: Patton, K 'The Scottish Women's Health Fair, 1983: A Showcase of the Scottish Women's Health Movement', Health History, 2024 ; 26(2): 73–94. You can access the article online here.

** For more on the Women's Health Shop, see: Robinson, S & Roberts, M, 'A women's health shop: a unique experiment.' British Medical Journal, vol 291, 27 July 1985, pp. 255 - 256. You can access the article online here.