Barbara Kay: The suicide double-standard

Blog post here. Excerpt:

'And men, of course, are far more likely to commit suicide than women altogether, although the fact is rarely brought to public attention as a matter for special concern, even when it would be appropriate to do so. Three students at Cornell University in New York State in the last month alone committed suicide by jumping off a bridge on the campus into a deep gorge. These were not “cries for help” — they were irrevocable decisions to die. The students were male. Yet Cornell president David Skorton said that “… suicide among young people is a national health crisis.”

Well, it isn’t a crisis amongst young people, but it is a crisis amongst young males. In Canada over 80% of suicides are male (77% in the U.S.). Suicides amongst men rise dramatically after separation or divorce, especially amongst men deprived of their family home and children, while suicide rates amongst women remain flat.

If the figures were reversed, and women were committing suicide at the rates of men, we can be sure that it would be considered a national crisis, one on which a great deal of money, media attention and authentic concern would be lavished. As of now, the only research being carried out on male suicide is being done by activists in the fathers’ rights movement.'