Daniel Freeman writes in the Guardian (13/12/13): "Being judged on one's appearance and the degree to which one conforms to a largely unattainable physical "ideal", shouldering the burden of responsibility for family, home and career, growing up in a society that routinely valorises masculinity while belittling femininity, and having to run the gauntlet of everyday sexism – all of these factors are likely to help lower women's self-esteem, increase their level of stress and leave them vulnerable to mental health problems. And that's without taking account of the effects of sexual abuse, a trauma that's frequently implicated in later psychological illness and one that as many as one in twenty girls are estimated to have suffered."
Alan Travis writes in the Guardian (14/12/2013 p.24): "Women's prisons in England and Wales are undergoing an "epidemic of self-mutilation", with one in four female prisoners having self-harmed, according to a new Oxford University study. The results of the largest ever study of self-harm in prisons, published by the medical journal The Lancet, also reveal women prisoners are four times more likely to self-harm than their male counterparts. The research by Seena Fazel and Keith Hawton examined nearly 140,000 incidents of self-harm, involving 26,510 people, between 2004 and 2009."
See also:
Self-harm 'four times more likely' in female prisoners (BBC News online, 16/12/2013)
Jails struggle to stop women from self-harming (The Times, 16/12/2013, p.2)
One in four female inmates self-harms (The Independent, 16/12/2013, p.20)
A quarter of female prisoners are self-harming: Report shows women are more likely than men to hurt themselves (Mail Online, 16/12/2013, Emma Thomas)
UK study reveals that one in four female prisoners self-harm (The Journal (Ireland), 16/12/2013)
Women prisoners more likely to self-harm (Nursing Times, 16/12/2013, via Press Association)
Radio: Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4 16/12/2013, 10:24am: "Women's prisons in England and Wales are undergoing an "epidemic of self-mutilation", with one in four female prisoners having self-harmed, according to a new Oxford University study. The results of the largest ever study of self-harm in prisons also reveal women prisoners are four times more likely to self-harm than their male counterparts. Senior author Dr Seena Fazel, Wellcome Trust fellow and psychiatrist at Oxford University, is interviewed on the programme." [c.23:00-31:18 on the iPlayer clock]
Radio: Nick Piercey, BBC Radio Oxford 16/12/2013, 04:01pm
Women in jail more likely to self-harm; Oxford Mail, p.7, 17/12/2013