Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Women Alcohol use Social aspects England »

In Europe, in the Middle Ages, ostrich feathers were used for the decoration of military headgear, as a representation of the high lineage of the possessor and his military virtues. They were imported from the coasts of West Africa, from Egypt and Syria into Italian and Spanish ports and from there exported to England and continental Europe. Venice, at the end of the fourteenth century, began to color feathers and soon the new fashion was spread throughout Europe. During the fifteenth century, even women began to use ostrich feathers on their hats or in their fans. When European ships reached America, Central Africa and the islands of the Indian Ocean, a huge amount of exotic bird feathers became available and ostrich feather fad spread through the population.

Abstract Recently, the interest in gender differences in mental disorders has increased dramatically, both in research and clinical settings. Gender has been defined as a result of socially constructed ideas about the behaviour, actions, and roles that a subject performs. These features contribute to the heterogeneity between women and men in the areas of epidemiology, clinical presentation, functional outcome, and biological features of mental disorders. In this chapter, we summarize the literature regarding gender differences in psychiatric conditions, focusing on epidemiological and clinical aspects, as well as offering a perspective on biological features, that could contribute to determining such differences. Major depressive disorder, anxiety- and trauma-related disorders, borderline personality disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and eating disorders are more frequently diagnosed in women than in men, while antisocial personality disorder, alcohol use, substance use, and conduct disorders are more frequent in men. Overall, women, as compared with men, show a more severe clinical presentation, more comorbidities with other psychiatric conditions, and a higher frequency of an ‘internalizing’ pattern. Men more often present an ‘externalizing’ pattern and comorbidity with substance use and conduct disorders. Genetic studies and magnetic resonance studies suggest gender differences in reaction to stress, which could partially explain the different gender-related features of psychiatric conditions. Despite the presence of an extensive literature, further work is needed in order to achieve an overall vision that integrates social and neurobiological aspects of gender with epidemiological and clinical features, as well as to implement the non-binary concept of gender that is absent in the available literature.