A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #46 - Work Kills - Mental Health: A Question of Gender and Class - Ester Barahona Urruchi, Miranda de Ebro (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The periodical of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) has 
dedicated its 443rd issue (April-June 2026) to a topic that continues to 
affect the daily lives of millions of workers: workplace accidents, 
occupational diseases, and, more generally, the relationship between 
work, health, and safety.
The dossier Trabajar mata ("Work Kills") addresses the issue from 
various perspectives: technical, union, social, and political. From 
injury data to the shortcomings of prevention systems, from gender 
differences in workplace health to corporate responsibilities, a picture 
emerges that questions not only working conditions, but the very model 
of production organization.

We offer Il Cantiere readers this article on mental health, translated 
by our editorial staff, as an opportunity for discussion and in-depth 
analysis of a topic that affects the lives, health, and dignity of 
workers every day.

A woman enters our center one morning looking terrible. She tells us she 
can't take it anymore, that she wants to disappear. For years, she's 
been scraping together odd, short-hour jobs, forced to report everything 
to the public employment service to avoid sanctions, because she 
receives a minimal benefit that is reduced every time she finds a few 
extra hours of work.

One of the companies she works for isn't even reimbursed for her 
transportation to the industrial area and tells us that, in effect, 
she's losing money. She's also overcome by anger when she thinks 
companies can benefit from her disability certificate and that this 
status is also used to justify a lower salary, based on a less favorable 
contract.

She won't stop crying. She's shaking. We've never seen her like this, 
even though we'd been noticing signs of growing distress for some time. 
She's a strong woman with some very difficult experiences behind her. We 
admire her and love her because, above all else, she's affectionate and 
grateful for the support we try to offer her.

That morning, we can only tell her that she's right, that it's not fair, 
and that this is all rubbish. She talks to the psychologist for a while. 
It's clear she's reached her limit. Her self-esteem is rock bottom.

Luckily, this story had a modestly happy ending. Precarious, but happy 
nonetheless. Shortly thereafter, a job offer arrived, securing a stable, 
almost full-time contract. Soon, she no longer needed therapy.

Now she often comes in with a smile on her face. Sometimes she complains 
about her salary, and rightly so. She doesn't lose sight of the fact 
that she's still in precarious employment and poor, but the pressure has 
eased significantly, and with it, her mental health has improved.

There are many forms of discrimination that plague her body and her 
life. They will continue to plague her, but she has accessed the small 
potion she needed to continue facing life with strength and humor. Other 
stories, however, never find a way out. The vessel fills up irremediably 
and no solution arrives. No stroke of luck. No train to catch that will 
allow her to even partially change her living conditions.

And yes, we're calling access to a poorly paid job with an indecent 
contract a "stroke of luck." But many people, especially women, are 
excluded from even this.

At this point, it's no longer necessary to spend too much time 
demonstrating that health is profoundly linked to social class, income, 
and gender. And we also know that when we talk about health, we must 
include mental health.

However, claiming that there is a close relationship between mental 
health and socioeconomic status can become problematic if the various 
factors at play are not considered. There is a risk that those who 
perceive themselves

- rightly or wrongly - how members of the middle or upper classes end up 
thinking that mental health is an issue that concerns only the poor and 
therefore cannot affect them.

The same thing happens with gender. There's a risk that many men will 
think, or continue to think, that psychological problems are a women's 
problem.

This is also due to the strong social stigma that continues to surround 
mental health issues. We know that the stronger the stigma and the more 
entrenched the prejudices surrounding these issues, the greater the 
resistance to acknowledging and accepting mental distress, both in 
oneself and in loved ones. This delays seeking help and thus worsens the 
prospects for recovering their quality of life. However, we also know 
that when working-class people recognize a problem and seek help, the 
public healthcare system takes months to offer them assistance. And when 
this assistance arrives, it is often insufficient, fragmented, and 
inadequate.

Furthermore, the widespread discussion about mental health today hasn't 
translated into a real increase in public resources. For this reason, 
initial psychological or psychiatric visits require extremely long wait 
times. The same is true for subsequent appointments.

The relationship of trust and the atmosphere of safety that should 
develop between therapist and patient become almost science fiction, a 
true leap of faith, when meetings take place once every four months.

For this reason, people who have sufficient income to turn to the 
private sector, with greater or lesser financial sacrifice, often end up 
doing so. In this effort, many families compromise their financial 
stability. Yet, those who manage to access private care become 
privileged, placed beyond the line that separates those who can treat 
their mental health issues from those who cannot. This lack of access to 
effective therapy causes mental health problems to drag on for years, 
sometimes a lifetime.

When mental health issues arise, there's a risk of falling into a 
vicious cycle that's extremely difficult to break. Poverty and 
precarious conditions impede access to care, and at the same time, 
psychological distress makes it extremely difficult to improve one's 
social, economic, and employment status. For people with serious mental 
health issues, finding and maintaining employment is particularly 
challenging.

An equation in which we must include stigma, taboo, capitalism, and 
productivity.

The labor market is a breeding ground for mental distress. It's a 
hostile environment for those who already suffer from it and a breeding 
ground for new ailments for those who have never experienced it before. 
Not only that, unemployment and the lack of job opportunities also cause 
suffering. If we accept these premises, we must also accept that social 
factors play a decisive role in mental health. This is not a recent 
discovery. Yet, in practice, there continues to be a certain resistance, 
both social and medical, to accepting these factors as causes, triggers, 
or aggravators of mental distress.

If, on the one hand, we have a biomedical vision of mental health that 
tends to emphasize biological factors and, on the other, a meritocratic 
society that constantly tells us that everyone gets what they deserve or 
what they are entitled to, the result is a collective imagination in 
which those who suffer or become ill are responsible for their condition 
or are victims exclusively of their genetic predisposition.

Thus, the material living conditions, lived experiences, and various 
forms of violence embedded in social, economic, cultural, and family 
contexts that have very little to do with individual choices or one's 
genetic heritage disappear.

Many studies indicate that the lack of support networks contributes to 
generating or worsening psychological distress. This doesn't mean 
blaming the family circle or those closest to those suffering from 
mental health problems. It's not simply a matter of having a family that 
knew or could provide the necessary support.

The problem is deeper: we live in a social model that places enormous 
demands on people and offers very little care in return.

This is why many individuals and groups are investing energy in building 
solidarity networks. It's about creating refuges where people can 
express themselves and receive the necessary support.

Mental health organizations-associations, collectives, and self-help 
groups-are places of trust and support for many people and their 
families. They are precious places for those who often feel alone within 
a system that creates suffering and, rather than offering the tools to 
overcome it, perpetuates it through precarious living conditions and 
weak public services.

We have ended up considering many mental disorders as chronic 
pathologies, probably because it is simpler and more convenient than 
recognizing that, in many cases, it is the living conditions themselves 
that are at the origin of the malaise.

Changing these conditions often means questioning some of the 
fundamental pillars of neoliberal heteropatriarchy: breaking with the 
family, with the couple, with the labor market, with gender roles, with 
expectations of success.

And, to be honest, we know that such a transformation is almost 
impossible if there isn't a solid network beneath our feet and if there 
aren't many hands around us ready to support us.

For this reason, as we continue to demand the right to dignified and 
free psychological and psychiatric care, we will also continue to build 
a network of networks, in cities and in the countryside, places where we 
can meet others and rediscover ourselves, places where we can name our 
ailments and, together, seek alternatives.

https://alternativalibertaria.org/
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