โI fear that the rights my motherโs generation fought for and that I have benefited from are already being stripped from my girls.โ
Womenโs health care professionals say it is likely we will see a rise in anxiety and depression among Australian women fuelled by online misogyny and the events in the US, such as the rolling back of womenโs rights, the mandating of strict gender definitions, the abandonment of the Paris Climate Agreement and the elimination of DEI programs.
โThe world is now a much smaller place, and being at the mercy of autocratic rules and laws, albeit in a different country, is something women are discussing as having a detrimental effect on their own mental health here,โ says Professor Jayashri Kulkarni, director of the HER Centre Australia at Monash University. โWe are seeing a lot of distress and there is a fear of, โwhat if that happens here?โโ
โWhat does this mean for me?โ
Australian psychologists and anxiety experts agree that exposure to dehumanising language and news about restricting abortion rights and mandating gender definitions could trigger already-vulnerable members of the community.
โIn Australia, the focus is more on domestic violence, which impacts 2.3 million women,โ says Dr Zena Burgess, chief executive of the Australian Psychological Society. โThis is what underlies their immediate and more personal feelings. When you see news, such as the turning back of reproductive rights, it makes you question, โwhat does this mean for me right now?โโ
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โFor that reason we have put forward to the government some initiatives around family violence and protecting women and children.โ Burgess said her organisationโs submitted report, Thinking Futures: Psychologyโs role in transforming women and girlsโ psychological health, was โa priority for Australia, and a way of distancing ourselvesโ.
Travel fears
Sydney mother Deborah Allan is nervous at the prospect of travelling to North America with her family given her husband is a dual Canadian-Australian citizen, as is their five-year-old daughter.
โAs a mother of a young daughter, I worry even more about the long-term impact of todayโs decisions on future generations, like cuts to healthcare funding, reduced access to contraception and restrictions on abortion rights.โ
Deborah Allan worries about the impact of rolling back reproductive rights on future generations of young women.Credit: Nick Moir
From a health perspective, the consequences of the Trump administrationโs legislation, coupled with weakened fact-checking laws on social media platforms, provide ideal conditions for misinformation in Australia.
โWe consume a whole lot of content that comes out of America about the use of medications or engagement with the health system, and we donโt have the mechanisms in Australia to regulate or screen that,โ says Bonney Corbin, the chair of the Australian Womenโs Health Alliance.
Kulkarni says the mistrust in America of government and the health care system has sabotaged an Australian-led research project she was involved in, which was examining premenstrual depression and required respondents to track their periods.
โA lot of women in Republican states have stopped using the apps to track their periods,โ Kulkarni says. โWhy? Because in states that donโt have the right to abortion, women fear the data will be used against them by the government.โ
Professor Jayashri Kulkarni says the reduction of womenโs rights in the US is having an impact on female mental health in Australia.Credit: Penny Stephens
Talk to teens
Dr Jodi Richardson, an expert on anxiety and host of the podcast Well, hello anxiety, says young girls and teens should be part of the conversation.
โCreating opportunities for open and safe conversation is really important,โ Richardson says. โAn opportunity came up for a conversation with my 14-year-old daughter in the car when [the song] TV by Billie Eilish came on with the lyric, โwhile theyโre overturning Roe v Wadeโ. I asked her if she knew what that meant, and it opened a discussion.โ
Anxiety therapist Georgie Collinson says there are ways to look after yourself if you are feeling overwhelmed.
- Boundaries: balance staying informed with getting offline. Curate where you source news.
- Action: counteract powerlessness with small acts, like supporting womenโs rights organisations.
- Feel: acknowledge any real anger and grief you are feeling.
- Breath work: use nervous system regulation tools such as breath work whenever you feel overwhelmed.
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