Mental health: where do gender issues arise? Cisgender women roles

Abstract

The article discusses how workers in the psychosocial care network and activists in the anti-asylum struggle understand issues related to gender hierarchies and their possible implications for comprehensive mental health care aimed at cisgender women. Considering that the asylum served to isolate and control female bodies, and the transformations proposed by the psychiatric reform, which allowed free care based on respect for human rights and the promotion of citizenship, we sought to analyse how stereotypes about the role of women in society permeate care practices in the approach to motherhood and situations of violence experienced by women in the psychosocial care network. In despite of the recognition of gender hierarchies and the need to transform practices in the mental health services, from the interviews emerge a hegemonic discourse about women stereotypes.