This theoretical paper argues that a range of social factors are relevant to the genesis of depression in women. These include stressors which particularly pertain to gender, and include poverty, limited practical and social supports and resources, violence against women and childhood sexual assault. After explicating an interpersonal model for the etiology of depression, the paper outlines approaches that nurses can draw on to take sex-based factors into account when assessing and working with women experiencing depression. Nursing strategies which emphasise hope, use group approaches and deal with emotions and unconscious issues are deemed to be especially important.