April 6th 2026
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WellBeing Magazine
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Rising rates of autoimmune disease in women may be linked to self-silencing and stress. Here’s what the research reveals.
The relationship between gender and, in particular, women’s health has intrigued health professionals over the past few decades. In the last few years, there has been considerable increase in the rates of autoimmune disease among the younger generations, in particular women. Up until now, the causes of autoimmune disease have been largely unknown, but alarmingly new research is stating that there could be a link between the increased load on women, in particular the numerous roles that women carry out in their everyday lives that are contributing to the rise of health conditions.
According to the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, autoimmune diseases disproportionately affect women, who account for 75 per cent of all cases. This poses the question: why are women being impacted so heavily and what is contributing to this hidden crisis? Is there a link between our increasingly busy lifestyles and the pursuit of having it all, or is there something larger at play that we aren’t accounting for?
Epidemic distress
Renowned physician, speaker and author Dr Gabor Maté has extensively dedicated his work to understanding the leading causes of stress among women. He states that we are “now seeing a worldwide epidemic of distress”. So, what is contributing to this increased rate of distress and autoimmune disease among women? Interestingly, it’s not necessarily increased work hours or even the household load, but it’s women not having the freedom and ability to truly express their emotions. Instead, those emotions are internalised and repressed.
So, let’s explore the factors causing this crisis but, first, we need to start by understanding the historical roles of women.
Generational roles
In the 1950s, gender roles heavily influenced the roles men and women assumed within the household.
Professor of American studies and history and author Elaine Tyler May shares that men were considered the head of the household and the sole provider, From a culture of self-sacrifice and self-silencing to rising rates of women’s health and autoimmune issues, we examine what’s driving this quiet crisis and the antidotes.
while women were expected to be the homemaker who cared for the children. Rarely were there shared roles. This meant for women, they learnt very early on that to maintain the peace within the household, it was their role to act as nurturers, carers, emotional mediators and educators who constantly fostered a sense of harmony within the family unit.
As such, women were taught that to maintain the peace, they were to suppress any desires that they had to uphold their significant other. They also learnt that their priorities and desires were secondary to their husbands, who were considered the head of the household.
Self-silencing
Interestingly, psychologist Dana Jack (1991) discovered a recurring theme among female patients who also suffered from depression. There was a tendency for these women to self-silence, that is, to engage in traditional roles such as compulsive caretaking, pleasing others and inhibiting one’s self-expression based upon certain norms and values that dictated how women should be. They engage in self-silencing in order to maintain relationships and to ensure their psychological and physical safety. However, they also described how silencing their voices led to a loss of self and a sense of being lost in their lives. They also conveyed their shame, desperation and anger over feelings of entrapment and self-betrayal.
Research has now discovered that there could be a strong link between the rise of women’s health conditions and the increase in both psychological and physical illness within women, in particular when it comes to self-silencing . This poses the question of how many of us are trying to accommodate the needs of others while overlooking the needs of ourselves.
Gender reshaping
While considerable change has occurred over the past few decades, we still need to consider how much of these roles that were heavily mirrored to us are still playing out in our everyday lives. Has this created unequal gender roles and family practices where women are now fulfi lling their career goals and still expected to be the primary carer, while also taking on the majority of the domestic duties?
A 2019 article by Andrew Trouson from The
University of Melbourne looked into the gender reshaping that is required by Australian households as more women return to work. It suggested that the majority of couples report high levels of workfamily conflict as they juggle competing priorities.
Women report high levels of stress due to work hours comparable to men, while still overseeing the majority of household work and caring of children.
It’s reported that the energy invested to manage this is leading to an increase in mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.
The unseen cost: stress and autoimmune disease
Dr Maté states that people-pleasers are those who are more likely to develop disease. Within his book The Body Says No, he states that “when we have been prevented from learning how to say no, our bodies may end up saying it for us”. He also brings to attention the hidden stress, the stress that we don’t see with the naked eye, that which is often undetectable. This “hidden stress that we all generate from our early programming is a pattern so deep and so subtle that it feels like a part of our real selves”, he writes. This early programming of self-silencing and self-sacrificing is causing us to deviate further away from who we innately are.
Unseen cost of autoimmune disease
Dr Sara Szal, a Harvard- and MIT-trained MD and author of The Autoimmune Cure, states, “Women are conditioned in our culture to be people-pleasers, to put other people’s needs before our own at the expense of our own self-care.” It appears that a lot of the symptoms that women experience are a byproduct of unseen stress where women have been quietened, taught that their voice isn’t important, or they have sacrificed their needs and desires at the expense or need to have it “together”. Some of these beliefs are so deeply embedded that we’ve become a culture of women who apologise for inconveniencing those around us, for being too much, even if it is costing us our health.
This silencing and sacrificing of one’s internal needs and lack of boundaries is creating such increased stress within our lives that it can cause increased inflammation within the body. Infl ammation is the body’s natural defence mechanism against injury, infection and disease. Stress can also impact the body’s inflammatory response, causing the body to initiate a stress response. A little bit of stress isn’t harmful, however continual prolonged repression of one’s true self can increase the risk of chronic illness and diseases such as autoimmune disease. Dr Szal refers to this as the point where the immune system gets confused and starts to attack our healthy tissues and cells.
From a traditional Chinese medicine perspective, it is believed that repressed emotions can be the root cause of disease, creating stress within the body and disrupting our vital life force, called qi. When we self-silence, the inability to speak our truth can impact the energetic centre within the body, which can create disharmony and blockages within the
energetic body and, subsequently, our nerves and major organs. This, in turn, can impact our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
Conscious awareness
A huge component of healing is understanding the root causes contributing to the rise of autoimmune disease and conditions within women. The famous proverb “knowledge means power” means understanding that we all have the power to create generational change by shifting from old social structures and narratives that have told us we can’t speak our truth for fear of judgement or repercussion. This knowledge now gives us the basis and the power to start to change the narrative to express who we truly are and what we need to return to ourselves and obtain a sense of fulfilment.
Unspoken feelings
The focus of Dr Maté’s work is aimed to help people uncover the unspoken emotions and feelings underlying their exterior presentation. One study by Bill Gayner of the University of Toronto in Canada explores the power of mindfulness therapy such as meditation and journalling to explore a person’s deeper experience, in order to address unfi nished business and inner conflicts. He found that emotions-focused mindfulness therapy was helpful for accessing, expressing and regulating emotions and processing negative events. Journalling is an invitation to express and validate your unspoken feelings and experience.
Take the opportunity to ask yourself: Were there certain roles that were modelled to you growing up?
Are there certain situations where you tend to silence yourself more? When you self-silence, how does this make you feel? Where does it sit within your energetic body? Journalling is a safe way to express your feelings and can reduce stress, anxiety and depression. It also helps to decrease activity in the amygdala, the brain’s emotional centre.
Connection and community
Research has also shown the importance of connection and community to support women in overcoming self-silencing and helping them to use their voice within a setting where they feel supported, safe and validated. This also enables women to feel empowered to express their authentic selves, emotions, desires, wants, needs and opinions, and prioritise their needs in a safe setting, free from judgement and punishment.
Finding meaning after autoimmune disease
Creating balance within our lives means starting to acknowledge and recognise your own internal needs and being able to express these in a meaningful way. It also means creating physical environments where you can thrive instead of feeling physically, mentally or emotionally drained or neglected. This means learning to assert boundaries to ensure that your needs are being met. Dr Szal also encourages women to focus on empowering themselves by using their body’s innate wisdom to heal through small lifestyle changes that aren’t overwhelming to the body but make a powerful difference over time.
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