Stress hurts women far worse

It's been 20 years since the release of John Gray's hugely popular book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, a work which fired public debate about gender differences. That discussion shows no signs of slowing down.

Wading into the melee is a professor of clinical psychology at Oxford University who has a new take on the debate. Daniel Freeman asks this question: who is likelier to suffer a psychological problem, men or women? According to his findings, gleaned from a wide spectrum of studies from Europe, the US and Australia, women experience more mental health problems than men - by far.

Although Freeman says the answer didn't come as a shock to him, it did seem to surprise the audience at the Asia Society that turned out en masse to hear him speak on March 20.

Freeman, whose primary area of research is delusions and hallucinations, has written a handful of self-help books. His latest book, The Stressed Sex: Uncovering the Truth About Men, Women and Mental Health, was co-authored with his brother Jason and will be published in July. "I wrote it because I wanted to find out the answer to that question. It's incredibly important. It's a social issue we should be acting on," he says.

He did the research in his free time, and says it was the gap between men and women that took him by surprise: "In the book, the figure we use is 20 to 40 per cent higher, but it varies depending on which study you're looking at. The German studies suggest it's higher."

Giving his first media interview on the book, Freeman was acutely aware of the need for tact in releasing these findings, as they touch on the sensitive issues of mental health and gender differences. He was keen not to lose sight of the disturbing fact that rates of mental illness are very high among both men and women.