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Women’s experiences of trauma have been linked to a variety of negative mental health consequences, including especially PTSD. Estimates from community studies suggest that women experience PTSD at two to three times the rate that men do. U.S. prevalence estimates of lifetime PTSD from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication are 9.7% for women and 3.6% for men.

Gender difference in susceptibility to PTSD appear to be at least partially related to the fact that women are more likely to experience sexual assault, as this experience carries one of the highest risks for PTSD. However, this does not entirely account for the gender difference in PTSD, as findings indicate that women are at greater risk for developing PTSD than men even when they are exposed to similar types of trauma. A number of explanations have been proposed to account for this gender difference. For example, it has also been suggested that women may be more susceptible to mental health consequences because they are more like to experience trauma within established relationships or their traumatic exposures are more chronic than those experienced by men (e.g. ongoing interpersonal violence within a marriage).