There’s a Stress Gap Between Men and Women

A) “I used to work very hard. I love to create things, grow them and solve problems,” said Meng Li, a successful app developer in San Francisco. “I didn’t really care about my mind and my body until they decided to go on strike.”

B) Ms. Li said her stress led to sleeplessness. When she did sleep, she experienced “problem-solving dreams,” which left her feeling unrested when she woke up. “After I became a first-time mother, I quickly realized I was so busy caring for other people and work that I felt like I’d lost myself,” she said.

C) It’s a common story—one we frequently ridicule and readily dismiss, for example, by claiming that women tend to complain more than men, despite the growing sum of research that underlines the problem. Women are twice as likely to suffer from severe stress and anxiety as men, according to a 2016 study published in The Journal of Brain & Behavior. The American Psychological Association reports a gender gap year after year showing that women consistently report higher stress levels. Clearly, a stress gap exists.

D) “The difference is not really news to me, as a clinical psychologist,” said Erin Joyce, a woman and couples therapist in Los Angeles. “It’s been well documented in extensive research over the years that prevalence rates for the majority of the anxiety disorders are higher in women than men.” Some people may argue that this is merely reported data, and they say many men feel the same pressures as women in terms of fulfilling responsibilities at work and home. In other words, we’re all really, really stressed.

E) “The difference, however, is in the nature and scope of these responsibilities in the home environment in particular,” Dr. Joyce said. For example, the United Nations reported that women do nearly three times as much unpaid domestic work as men. The problem is, housework is often overlooked as work, even though it is often as laborious (or in some cases, more so) as any paid job. As the scholar Silvia Federici put it in 1975, the unpaid nature of domestic work reinforces the assumption that “housework is not work, thus preventing women from struggling against it.”

F) It’s not just inside the home, though. Research from Nova Southeastern University found that female managers were more likely than male managers to display “surface acting,” or forcing emotions that are not wholly felt. “They expressed optimism, calmness and empathy even when these were not the emotions that they were actually feeling,” the study said.

G) Surface acting is a prime example of “emotional labor,” a concept that the writer Jess Zimmerman made familiar in a 2015 essay. The essay sparked a massive thread on the internet community blog MetaFilter. Hundreds of women spoke up about their own experience with emotional labor: the duties that are expected of them, but go unnoticed. These invisible duties become apparent only when you don’t do them. Like domestic labor, emotional labor is generally dismissed and not labeled work. But research shows it can be just as exhausting as paid work. Emotional labor can lead to difficulty in sleeping and family conflict. Sure, circumstantial stress, like losing a job, may lead to these same issues. But emotional labor is not circumstantial. It’s an enduring responsibility based on the socialized gender role of women.

H) Like Ms. Li, many women try to manage the added stress to reach what Dr. Joyce said was an unattainable ideal. “Some professional women aim to do it all. They want to reach the top of the corporate ladder and fly like supermom,” she said. When women don’t reach this ideal, they feel guilty; and even more stressed. After her own struggle with this, Ms. Li took a step back and used her experience to build Sanity & Self, a self-care app and platform for overworked women. “The realizations I had in that process helped me gain insights and ultimately got me ready to integrate self-care into my daily life,” she said.

I) The stress problem extends beyond mental health when you consider the link between stress, anxiety and heart health. Worse, most of what we know about heart disease comes from studies involving men. However, “there are many reasons to think that it’s different in women,” Harvard Medical School reported. For example, women are more likely to experience disturbed sleep, anxiety and unusual fatigue before a heart attack. Stress is so normalized that it is easy for women to shrug off those symptoms as simply the consequences of stress. Many women also do not experience chest pain before a heart attack the way men do, which leads to fewer women discovering problematic heart issues. Harvard reports that women are “much more likely than men to die within a year of having a heart attack” and “many women say their physicians sometimes don’t even recognize the symptoms.”

J) The good news is, women are more likely than men to take charge of their stress and manage it, the American Psychological Association reports. The concept of self-care, at its core, is quite simple. “The basics of adequate sleep, healthy diet and exercise are a good place to start,” Dr. Joyce said. “Support from trusted relationships is vital. This includes professional support from various health and wellness providers if stress is becoming increasingly overwhelming.”

K) Disconnecting from work and home responsibilities is also obviously important. But it’s much easier said than done. It is important to understand what causes your stress in the first place. “Get really specific with what’s stressing you out,” Ms. Li said. “We often chalk up our stress to broad experiences like work. But work stress can take many different forms. Is a colleague being disrespectful of your time? Is a boss undermining your day-to-day control over decision making? These are different causes of stress and can benefit from different kinds of self-care.”

L) Ideally, your spouse of partner will be supportive, rather than dismissive, of your stress. It is important to talk through these issues before they come to a head. “Women working outside of the home should make an effort to have a conscious conversation with their partners about more equitable sharing of household and family responsibilities,” Dr. Joyce said.

请填入大写字母。

   1    Some career women who aim high tend to feel guilty if they fail to achieve their goals.

   2    The unpaid housework done by women is triple that done by men.

   3    It is reported that women consistently suffer more from severe stress than men.

   4    Women are advised to identify the specific causes of their stress so that steps can be taken to deal with it.

   5    One study showed that women managers often expressed positive emotions that they didn’t really feel.

   6    Women tend to mistake signs of heart attacks for symptoms of stress.

   7    For a time an app developer in America was so busy attending to work and family that she suffered from sleeplessness.

   8    The emotional labor women do is noticed only when it is not done.

   9    Dr. Joyce suggests that apart from self-care, women should seek professional support if they experience severe stress.

   10   Some people believe that there may not exist a stress gap between men and women.

答案：

36. 一些有远大目标的职业女性在未能实现目标时往往会感到内疚。

解析：H。由career woman、aim high和feel guilty if they fail可定位至H段第2-4句：一些职业女性试图让自己做到一切。她们既希望登上公司的最高层，又想像超级妈妈一样飞翔。当女性达不到这个理想时，她们就会感到内疚，甚至压力更大。题干中的career woman对应原文中的professional women，aim high对应aim to do it all，feel guilty if they fail是don’t reach this ideal, they feel guilty的同义表述。故H为正确答案。

37. 女性做的无偿家务劳动是男性的三倍。

解析：E。由unpaid housework和triple可定位至E段第2句：联合国报告称，女性所做的无偿家务几乎是男性的三倍。题干中unpaid housework对应原文中的unpaid domestic work，triple是three times as much…as的同义表述。故E为正确答案。

38. 据报道，女性遭受的严重精神压力一直都比男性多。

解析：C。由women…suffer more from server stress可定位至C段第2-3句：根据2016年发表在《大脑与行为》杂志上的一项研究，女性遭受严重压力和焦虑的可能性是男性的两倍。美国心理学协会的报告显示，年复一年的性别差距表明，女性的压力水平一直较高（相比男性）。题干中的consistently为原词复现，suffer more from对应原文中的are twice as likely to suffer from。故C为正确答案。

39. 建议女性找出造成其压力的具体原因，以便采取措施加以解决。

解析：K。由specific causes可定位至K段。本段第3-4句提到，首先要明白是什么导致了你的压力，这是关键的一步。要很明确是什么让你感到有压力。最后一句指出，这些都是产生压力的不同原因，可以通过不同类型的自我护理来改善。故本题是K段内容的概述。

40. 一项研究表明，女性经理经常会表露出她们并没有真正感受到的积极情绪。

解析：F。由women managers和positive emotions可定位至F段第3句：她们会表现出乐观、冷静、同情等情绪，即使这些情绪并不是她们实际感受到的。They指代的即是前一句中的female managers，positive emotions是对原文中optimism, calmness and empathy的同义概括。故F为正确答案。

41. 女性往往把心脏病发作的迹象误认为是压力的症状。

解析：I。由mistake、heart attacks和symptoms of stress可定位至I段第5句：压力是如此的常态化，以至于女性很容易把这些症状简单地当作是压力的影响而不予理会。题干中的mistake…for对应原文中的shrug off…as，原文中的symptoms指前一句提到的heart attack，故I为正确答案。

42. 一段时间内，美国的一名应用程序开发人员太过忙于工作和家庭，以至于失眠。

解析：B。由an app developer和sleeplessness可定位至B段第1句：李女士说，她的压力引发了失眠。前文A段提到李女士是一位成功的应用程序开发者。app developer和sleeplessness都在原文中复现，故B为正确答案。

43. 女性从事的情绪劳动只有在没有做的时候才会被注意到。

解析：G。由emotional labor可定位指G段。本段第4句提到，那些看不见的职责只有在你不去完成的时候才会显露出来。原文中提到的invisible duties指的就是题目中的emotional labor，is noticed only when it is not done对应become apparent only when you don’t do them。故G为正确答案。

44. 乔伊斯医生建议，女性在面临严重压力时，除了自我护理外，还应该寻求专业支持。

解析：J。由Dr. Joyce和seek professional support可定位至J段。本段第2-3句提到乔伊斯医生建议女性要学会自我护理。随后在第4-5句中说明，同时寻求专业的支持也是至关重要的。本题是对J段内容的整体概述，故J为正确答案。

45. 有些人认为，男女之间可能不存在压力差距。

解析：D。D段第3句说到，有些人可能会说，这仅仅是报告的数据而已，而且他们还会认为，在履行工作和家庭责任方面，许多男性都会和女性感到同样的压力。也就是说，这些人认为男女之间的压力是一样的，不会存在差距。not exist a stress gap between men and women对应原文中men feel the same pressure as women… at work and home，故D为正确答案。