Are the Negative Mental Health Effects of Gender Discrimination (GD) Salient across Cultures? Does Self-Esteem Mediate These Effects: GD as a Continuous Traumatic Stress and the Pathways to Its Negative Dynamics?

Abstract

Traumatology perspective on gender discrimination GD, views it as type III identity continuous trauma that has continuous and stable negative mental health effects. Current work evaluated the salience of GD’s negative effects across different cultures and outcome measures and tested the differential impact of GD within the household (GD-P), and GD within social institutions (GD-S). Data from four previous studies on American Indians, Palestinians, and clients of mental health clinics in Egypt and torture survivors in the US were re-analyzed. All the four studies used the same measure of GD, and trauma types, with similar and different outcome measures which allowed measuring the stability of the effects across different cultures and different outcome measures. Partial correlation and path analysis were conducted. GD predicted increased PTSD, cumulative trauma disorders, general anxiety, annihilation anxiety, and decreased in self-esteem, general assessed functioning. Results suggested that linear and non-linear effects of GD supported its cumulative dynamics. GD-S was associated with more negative outcomes than GD-P. Further, internalizing and appraising GD as positive mediated by resulted decrease in self-esteem, predicted negative mental health outcomes, while negative appraisal did not predict any negative change. Positive appraisal of GD may be a negative coping strategy. The implications of results for trauma theory, counseling and social justice, and for future research were discussed.