ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on feminist efforts, offering ways to construct a women's mental health research agenda designed to serve the needs of women into the twenty-first century. In 1987, NIMH developed a women's mental health research agenda that emphasized the mental health effects of stress related to these conditions. The chapter demonstrates the importance of examining the interrelationships among biological, psychological, and social variables over the life cycle in understanding the multiple realities of women's lives. The women's mental health research agenda for the twenty-first century must entail a multitude of topics and issues that cannot be touched upon adequately here. Eternal vigilance and a strong women's movement appear to be the necessary foundation for achieving alternative visions and implementing a women's mental health research agenda responsive to the needs of all women into the twenty-first century. Physical and sexual abuse of women by intimates is widespread, is found among all segments of society.
