Oliver James | FiveBooks

Oliver James | FiveBooks: "All this stuff about how society is making us ill and we’re all mentally ill because we’re richer sounds very nostalgic for a simpler past of warm beer and cricket. But as a woman surely things are better because we don’t die in childbirth or, ideally, get abused by our husbands?

It depends when exactly you choose to compare. If you compare with 1950 there is strong evidence from American research that a woman in her 20s today is five times more likely to be mentally ill using the same method of measurement as a woman going back to 1938. Actually, it includes women in their late teens as well and there is a linear increase the closer you get to the present day, overall. So, no. It is a complete myth that feminism in the American form, and I’m talking only about Britain and America here – the picture is probably very different in Sweden and Italy or Spain…�"