Gabor Maté
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
So the reason, it's not women's fault.
It's not even men's fault.
It's not a question of fault.
It's the way we are cultured to function.
Now, in my marriage, my wife had to increasingly learn to say no to that role of essentially being my emotional mother.
When men take on that role, they take on a lot of stress.
And that's why there's more autoimmune disease amongst women.
And, of course, the male personality, I'm speaking of myself...
doesn't take kindly to being called to responsibility.
I want to be mothered.
A part of me wants to be mothered, you know, and part of me also resists being mothered or resents it.
But women do take on that role of, well, there was a New York Times article during COVID times
based on research that women tended to take on the stresses of their husbands during COVID and they felt guilty if the husband was stressed.
So the article was called Society's Shock Absorbers, which then became a title of a chapter in my book.
What am I saying again?
It's all one.
Our social roles and our emotions tell on our physiology.
Well, Western medicine is completely unscientific when it comes to this point.
It's got a lot of beautiful science, incredible achievements, technologies, interventions, miraculous.
But it does separate the mind from the body, which is scientifically completely untenable.