Mother’s Little Helper: Psychiatry, Gender, and the Rise of Psychopharmaceuticals
Dig: A History Podcast
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Women's Drug Addiction
In the 19 sixties and into the seventies, minor tranquillizers were prescribed almost exclusively to women. The drug companies stopped bothering trying to market them to men. Feminists in particular, took on the over prescription of the drug for just about every possible reason from skin problems to vaginal pain. Eventually, valium began to market itself as specifically not for everyday stresses, but instead for acute duress. In fact, one psychiatrist went so far as to describe prosa as a feminist wonder drug. It would help women succeed in a man's world. Prosac also empowered women by advertising directly to them, telling them to ask their doctor and putting the decision to seek out the drug in
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