Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.   In the public's eye, military men are still the sole sufferers of PTSD. But research shows that women are in some cases twice as likely to develop the disorder. Despite being far more vulnerable, women are often misdiagnosed due to cultural stereotypes, and there's a huge gap in research on which kinds of treatments work best for which kinds of people. Studies and research programs have been designed, until recently, to understand men with PTSD. The same is true for support systems and treatment centers. In the legal system, women who report PTSD from rape are less likely to be believed than men who report PTSD from combat. Research shows that women are at a higher risk of PTSD. While men experience more traumatic events in their lives, women
are, depending on which study you look at, as much as twice as likely to develop PTSD, but no one really knows why. Pervasive male prejudice against women is another factor that can diminish unit cohesion for female soldiers. Because women are less likely than men to experience unit cohesion while serving in the military, women are less likely to develop the social support structures that will help prevent them from developing PTSD. For women, this hesitation to self-identify as a sufferer of PTSD could be even greater; historically, female soldiers have struggled to be counted as equals to men on the battlefield. Women, stereotypically considered to possess less emotional fortitude than men, may be unwilling to admit that they are suffering from PTSD lest they appear to conform to this stereotype.  That domestic bit has another face too: Where men who've experienced trauma might be able to take time off to recover, women are expected to maintain their domestic, caregiving roles, which make it harder for women to address symptoms of post-traumatic stress for fear of "failing" at their roles as mother, daughter and wife. "Gendered social roles can compound the negative impact," said Dawne Vogt, a research psychologist at the Women's Health Sciences Division of the National Center for PTSD. "So they might have additional stress when they're dealing with something. "Technically, PTSD is largely the same for men and women, characterized by things like fear based anxiety, sleep disturbance, flashbacks, feelings of detachment and more. And both men and women often experience multiple conditions alongside PTSD. But they seem to develop different sets of additional problems. Women tend to develop depression alongside their PTSD, while men tend to tack on substance abuse. What that means is
that men with PTSD tend to show a different profile than women do. Men tend to lash out, showing anger, hostility, explosiveness and unpredictability. Women, often because of their depression, tend to do the opposite, becoming withdrawn and turning to self harm. What is clear is that women who return from combat, with PTSD or not, often have a harder time returning to their lives. According to a report by the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Labor and Housing and Urban Development, "America's nearly 300,000 women veterans are put at risk by a system designed for and dominated by male veterans." This includes lack of access to peer support, group therapy and specialized mental health care for things like PTSD. Recent changes made by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs have improved treatment options for female veterans living with PTSD, but there is still more that needs to be done.  Women veterans are also more likely to be unemployed than male veterans, and at least twice as likely to be homeless. On top of that, women veterans are more likely to be single parents and come back to dependents. But Vogt says that nobody knows how this might impact their PTSD, or which treatments might work best. And it's not necessarily clear that what works for veterans will work for civilians either. Right now, for example, most of the research on virtual reality uses for treating PTSD focuses on military men.Another challenge is that until very recently, treatment for PTSD has been more difficult for women than men to obtain. Before rule changes were enacted in 2010, only veterans who encountered direct combat experience qualified to receive disability payments for PTSD. Because very few women are placed on the front lines, very few were eligible to receive free treatment for PTSD. However, recent regulation
changes have ended these stipulations, allowing women who serve in any capacity to be eligible for benefits. Even if female veterans are eligible for these benefits, the quality of the care a wartime PTSD sufferer receives can vary widely. The United States Department of Veterans Affair(VA) pays disability benefits to service men and women who have been diagnosed with PTSD and also provides these individuals with free health care. But while mental health counseling that comes directly from VA doctors is completely free to veterans, there are often long waiting lists for those who need to be evaluated or treated. Therapy provided by non-VA professionals may not be covered by health insurance. Access to mental health professionals who have been specially trained to treat wartime PTSD is often difficult for those not living near major urban centers.  On both the research level and the policy level, more must be done to help the women who have sacrificed so much for their country Figuring out which treatment works best for PTSD is still an ongoing process for everybody, men and women alike. But if researchers want to help treat people equally, they'll need to include more women.