Seriously. I'm begging you ALL, as a member not as a mod, just fucking stop ruining this thread that had potential and that some of us are trying to have a grownup discussion in.
Ivy, while I understand your sentiment, ^^this is part of the problem. In a discussion where things are actually being discussed, you don't get to pick and choose what aspects of a topic are off limits. Maybe in a formal debate, but not in most threads. Telling people to "shut up" - however indirectly - is just as toxic if not more so than whatever topic you want to avoid.
From a cultural standpoint...
the poor classes have always had it shitty. the men in those classes enjoyed little more rights than their wives and daughters, and in some regards, they were even less advantaged and more disposable.
The women's rights' movements were largely beneficial, but what went wrong was that men kind of got left behind as progress happened. Now they're continually falling behind in both school and professional scenarios--it isn't really all that obvious yet, but give it another several decades. Now, as far as the powerful classes are concerned, women are still a minority in the halls of power, however they have made many inroads and we're gradually seeing more and more take their rightful places in those classes. However, with our schools in fact favoring females by design, we're going to see the scale tipping the other way rather than coming to a balance, as it should rightfully be.
So men might not be outright thinking, "ohhh feminism and gender politics have driven me to blow my brains out," but the conditions in our society may certainly be at least partly to blame for an increase in male suicide rates.
Am I blaming women? No. I'm just trying to recognize the trends in society that may explain the increase in male suicide rates.
Yeah, I don't think there's a cause-effect between women's rights movements and suicide, per se. The women's right movement has been active for a long time. The recent increase in suicide is localized in the last decade or so.
It doesn't even seem to be poor vs rich, because black and hispanic males aren't seeing the same increase in suicide rates: it's white, middle aged men.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...hite-middle-age-suicide-in-america-skyrockets
If I'm not mistaken, and I don't have the time to look this up right now but I've consistently heard it from reliable sources, men SUCCEED far more often, but women ATTEMPT far more often. An attempt is often a cry for help, so it makes sense that men who feel hopeless enough to consider suicide mostly don't want to ask for help, and don't consider failure an option. After all, it would just be one more thing to be incompetent at.
Yeah, I believe this is a large part of the male vs. female dynamic. But there is also a recent spike that isn't explained away. I think the main takeaway is that if a man decides to kill himself, it's probably going to happen. It's not a cry for help, just despairing of any help. This is a point I'll return to at the end of this post.
I do feel that the current setup of our school systems is failing many boys. There are two pipelines, the school-to-prison and the school-to-college pipelines- those are the only two versions of masculinity that are being sold to our boys. Either you go to college and succeed as an Important Businessman or you gang up and commit Manly Criminal Acts (and often, especially for boys of color, this is expected of them and glorified in some ways). What of boys who could be satisfied and fulfilled in a blue-collar job? That used to be respectable, but now it's seen as many rungs below college careers. Or, even if they did go to school but found their joy in a traditionally female field such as teaching or nursing? Boys and men with those aspirations are often laughed at by their peers (notably, not usually by women- we love that shit).
Example: My little brother (turning 30 this year) is a welder. Personally, I think that's totally awesome, and a perfectly respectable job. He makes decent money and I love telling people my brother is a welder. He helps make John Deere/Hitachi tractors and farm equipment. But he's got a terrible sense of inferiority about it and is always "promising" us that he plans to go back to school for engineering. School was just never his gig- and IMO there should be separate tracks for folks who are just not academically inclined. There is no shame in having different talents.
He did have one terrible girlfriend who reinforced that hierarchy that he was "not living up to his potential" as a welder, but his wife now is not giving him those messages- she's proud of him in the job he's in. I worry a lot about him. Additionally, he holds himself to an impossible standard of self-reliance, and when the facade breaks and he loses his shit it's UGLY. And then he zips it back up and promises us he'll "do better." I try to tell him that it's okay if he needs to lean on us now and then, and maybe if he sought some support here and there he wouldn't feel like exploding.
I agree that there definitely needs to be much more respect for trade schools. It isn't a failure to go that route. Heck, most IT jobs these days would easily fit into a trade school environment - you don't need a CS degree for them. CS is computer THEORY, not computer USE.
I will agree IN PART with your analysis that we are too limited in how we teach what success looks like. A lot of things that have been traditionally thought of as successful and fulfilling - such as blue collar jobs - aren't taught as being successful any more. But I think it's more than just blue collar jobs, but all sorts of valid expressions of masculinity that are negated by certain flavors of feminist activism. As Christina Hoff Summers puts it, we don't let boys BE BOYS. That means actually letting them run around and do risky things and playing in dirt and being rambunctious. And later on it means
being responsible, where we make it clear that playing is fine, but you need to do something productive and not only be able to take care of yourself, but take care of other people.
I would regard this as thumb-sucking, condescending nonsense, lacking any understanding of masculinity.
Or maybe it's because divorce is fucking hard and sad, and we're not raising boys to know what to do with feelings of sadness or to lean on others when things get hard.
And this is more condescending nonsense.
Boys are wired to not lean on people as much as girls are. This is gut-level stuff that people who believe in nurture-not-nature instantly dismiss, never mind empirically measured differences in brain behaviors and the effects of hormones. Even as babies, give a boy a problem to work around and he'll just keep on trying to work around it (e.g., to get to a toy behind a glass barrier), while the girl will typically just sit down and cry, and thus get help to resolve her problem.
Beyond that, it matters how much actual family the man has. After a divorce, a man has just LOST his family. I'm sorry, but no amount of "teaching" how to deal with feelings and sadness will get you through that. Friends will get you through that. Other family members will get you through that. I say this having
been there, done that. You are well aware of my emotional maturity and awareness. Nonetheless, I strongly considered suicide. It felt like I had nothing to live for. It's that "nothing to live for" feeling that results in suicide becoming a choice.
Yes, there is a difference between men and women, here. Women will instinctively gravitate towards finding social support. Men don't. But that's not a "how to deal with feelings" issue. It's one of those weird hard-wired things that can be compensated for (by having friends and family) but not taught, really. (Going into the "why" of this, for which I have ample evidence and goes into overall psychological principles of how people's unconscious works, would be to go wayyyy off topic. I've been working on a thread idea along these lines, but it hasn't jelled as I'm still researching/reading.) The main point I'm making here is that yes, there is something that emotionally needs to happen, but it is not "learn how to deal with emotions the way girls do".
Excellent. Yes of course there are many reasons. I noticed you didn't mention the major 'cause/link' that has been researched. Perhaps you've never been married. Are you? Been divorced? Lets talk about research on the matter.
"One recent study by the National Institute for Healthcare Research in Rockville, MD (2001) indicates that divorced people are three times as likely to commit suicide as people who are married. The Institute says that
divorce now ranks as the number one factor linked with suicide rates in major U.S. cities, ranking above all other physical, financial, and psychological factors.
A study of 13 European countries by the regional European office of the World Health Organization found that divorce was the only factor linked with suicide in every one of the 13 countries. The study showed that factors like poverty, unemployment, and disability were associated with divorce in some of the countries but that
disruption of the family was the only factor linked with divorce in all 13."
Here is another study from the Journal of Epidemiology and community health.
"These results dramatise the terrible consequences of being a divorced man in America, and lead to the question: why are divorced men killing themselves? Some analysts argue that the research community has ignored a plausible explanation for the excess suicide risks experienced by divorced men. As Perrault3 and Farrell4 observe, while social, psychological, and even personal problems facing women are readily denounced, societal institutions tend to ignore or minimise male problems as evident in suicide statistics. For instance, in many jurisdictions in the US there seems to be an implicit assumption that the bond between a woman and her children is stronger than that between a man and his children.5 As a consequence, in a divorce settlement, custody of children is more likely to be given to the wife. In the end, the father loses not only his marriage, but his children.
The result may be anger at the court system especially in situations wherein the husband feels betrayed because it was the wife that initiated the divorce, or because the courts virtually gave away everything that was previously owned by the ex-husband or the now defunct household to the former wife. Events could spiral into resentment (toward the spouse and “the systemâ€), bitterness, anxiety, and depression, reduced self esteem, and a sense of “life not worth livingâ€. As depression and poor mental health are known markers of suicide risk, it may well be that one of the fundamental reasons for the observed association between divorce and suicide in men is the impact of post divorce (court sanctioned) “arrangementsâ€. Clearly this is an issue that needs further investigation."
Divorce and suicide risk -- Kposowa 57 (12): 993 -- Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health
Hmmm, where did these divorce laws come from? Who advocated and supported them? Hmmm.
Lark, do you have any evidence or links on the matter (male suicide) that you want to share?
Actually, the divorce laws (other than no-fault divorce) came from traditional values: a divorced woman, in the days before feminism held sway, had no means of support other than maybe her family taking her back in, therefore the court would be ensuring that the initial financial promise was kept (support for her and for any children). But with no-fault divorce plus full women's rights, the logistics completely change (as you well know).
I would say that current divorce laws are not a
cause of male suicide, but they are a salt-on-the-wound kind of thing.