Out of Her Mind: How Society Fails Women’s Mental Health – A Review
By Asma G
Content warning: The book reviewed here contains mentions of self-harm, suicide, sexual abuse, trauma and mental illness.
“‘We’re different.
We’re treated differently by our own because we’re women. We’re treated differently outside because we’re Asian.’
The words spoken by a 17-year-old South Asian girl to researchers in the north of England, capturing the intersection between sexism within her home and racism outside of it.
Suicide rates in South Asian women in the UK are two and a half times those for white women, and those in the 16-24 age group, feeling trapped between two cultures, are particularly at risk. The burden of the family’s honour or ‘Izzat’ is borne heavily by the women and reinforced by other women too: mothers, sisters, grandmothers. As ‘cultural reproducers’, women are used to ensure the longevity of the patriarchy,” explains Dr. Linda Gask, in her latest book Out of Her Mind.
As I re-read the paragraph, I found myself scoffing. “Who even uses words like Izzat anymore? Such an antiquated, filmy term. The only people who talk about Izzat are actors in TV serials and no one watches them!” I grumbled under my breath, and shut the book.
Barely an hour later, a memory came unbidden – my mother angrily telling me that I was trying to bring her shame by refusing to get married, after a contentious conversation where I informed my parents that I didn’t plan on ever getting married and told them that they were wasting their own time and mine by talking about marriage.
Obviously, I was wrong about ideas like Izzat not persisting in everyday life. The idea of family honour still exists and is intertwined with shame, guilt*, and emotional manipulation, even today.
Coming across the idea of Izzat in a book about women’s mental health, written by a British psychiatrist, was definitely not on my bingo card for 2025; the possibility that I would gain insight into my family’s beliefs and behaviour and that of Indian society at large, even less so.
Out of Her Mind: How We Are Failing Women’s Mental Health and What Must Change by Dr. Linda Gask was published in 2024 by Cambridge University Press. Dr. Gask is Emerita Professor of Primary Care Psychiatry at the University of Manchester. Dr. Gask retired from being a consultant in the National Health Service. She has also been an advisor to the World Health Organisation. Dr. Gask has written two memoirs detailing her own experiences of mental illness, one of which I have previously reviewed – The Other Side of Silence.
A feminist psychiatrist, Dr. Gask delves into numerous factors impacting women’s mental health and how mental health services in the UK (and globally) are unequipped to support women and often fail them terribly. In Out of Her Mind, Dr. Gask provides a comprehensive account of the issues women face in their lifespan – from childhood to old age and the consequent impact on their mental health. The book discusses the impact of growing up as a girl, the impact of family, eating disorders, Pre-menstrual Syndrome (PMS), Pre-menstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), mental health services’ propensity to diagnose women disproportionately with borderline personality disorder, amongst several other topics.
What sets the book apart is the unique perspective Dr. Gask provides as a feminist psychiatrist who has lived through and benefited from the second wave of feminism. Throughout the book, she explains feminist perspectives towards psychiatric diagnoses and treatments, and the perspectives of the psychiatric community and the medical profession at large. Dr. Gask is toeing a fine line – playing a balancing act between her identities as a feminist and a psychiatrist.
Describing PMDD and the controversy around prescribing medication for its treatment, Dr. Gask writes, “Pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), a more severe form of PMS, was very controversial for decades because women who are already low in mood can also feel much worse pre-menstrually, and antidepressants, particularly fluoxetine (Prozac), were heavily marketed for its treatment. PMDD was officially ‘recognised’ in 1999 but the rise of the ‘PMS defence’ had already led to anger among feminists who viewed all this ‘hormonal’ proof of women’s unreasonableness as part of the conservative backlash against feminism. They asked, who might really benefit from the portrayal of women as unstable, inept and out of control during their periods? And concluded, ‘It’s a label that can be used by a sexist society that wants to believe many women go crazy once a month.’
I know where these writers are coming from. Women are dismissed as hormonal just as much as they are called hysterical.
But is it fair to suggest we should just cope with it and stop complaining?
Those who experience severe symptoms and are desperate for help might beg to disagree.”
Dr. Gask also chronicles the change in her perspective and her gradual acceptance of her own privilege. During a debate in 2016, when someone comments about her privilege, she writes of how she is offended and responds, “I’m fortunate, not privileged.”
Explaining her reaction, she writes, “I’m a White, working-class woman who managed to claw her way up to be a professor too, at the medical school in Manchester, when that was so unusual for a woman that people would come to interview me (and others like me) to try to understand how that was even possible.”
Eventually, through interactions with Black women and other minorities, Dr. Gask’s perspective of her own privilege shifts and she acknowledges the privileges afforded to her as a White woman, despite being working-class.
In Out of Her Mind, Dr. Gask uses anecdotes from her interviews with numerous women and trans-people who describe their lives, experiences of mental illness, and the treatment they receive from both mental health services and society at large. This in combination with Dr. Gask’s extensive sources (cited throughout the book) and her accounts of her experiences treating patients in her capacity as a psychiatrist and accessing mental health services as a woman who has dealt with mental illness herself, make Out of Her Mind an impactful read.
Out of Her Mind is a book I would recommend to every adult because of the extent of research Dr. Gask has undertaken, the comprehensive overview it provides of women’s lives and the universality of the experiences she describes, whether one is in the UK or in India.
*(In the book, Dr. Gask explains the difference between shame and guilt, an important distinction, writing, “Shame is different from guilt. You can feel guilty for things that you have done, but shame is about how the world sees you and your own core sense of self-worth.”)
Bio: Asma G is a feminist writer with an interest in public policy and mental health. You can read more of her pieces right here, and find her on Instagram at @asmag7
