Women are twice as likely as men to have serious feelings of depression. Some forms of low mood are very specific to women, including the ‘baby blues’, postpartum depression, sadness around menopause, and melancholy linked to menstruation. However, the gap between rates of severe depressive feelings in women and men has been narrowing in recent years. Improved access to education, employment and effective birth control might have reduced women's exposure to stress. Women today have more access to what might have traditionally helped men deal with negative feelings – the distraction of work outside the home, a wider social circle (with office colleagues) and financial independence.

Surveys have found that women tend to report more positive emotions as well as more negative ones (Fujita et al, 1991). Women might experience more emotion, or more variation in emotion, or they might simply be more aware of their moods than men are.

Studies suggest women have more ‘internalising’ disorders, in which difficulties centre on an unpleasant internal experience (e.g. depression, anxiety, panic, phobia). Men tend to have more ‘externalising’ disorders, in which outward behaviour is problematic (e.g. attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, violence, alcohol and drug dependency) (Kramer et al, 2008).