THE FEMINIZATION OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OR THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGIZATION OF THE FEMININE? DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS OF VULNERABLE BODIES

In this article, we review the role of the psychological disciplines in pathologizing and hyper-embodying the intersubjective functioning of women and of people with non-normative sex-gender ascriptions. To this purpose, we explore how some diagnostic categories that are more prevalent in women are related to the socio-scientific construction of women as psychologically vulnerable; the explanatory sufficiency attributed to biology in understanding and justifying genderbased inequalities and subordinations; the effects of individualization, universalization and essentialization of relational distress, as well as the disciplinary penalties exacted on non-masculine and non-heterosexual bodies and life forms, in general. We base the above on a discursive analysis of various fragments obtained from interviews with mental health professionals, through which we make visible how gender-based hierarchies of subjective functioning are constructed.