SK: Men are dying from lack of attention

Article here. Excerpt:

'Recently, a friend showed me a sobering graphic depicting the gender disparity in suicide rates between men and women. While females tend to attempt suicide more often than men (and experience suicidal thoughts more frequently,) males are more "successful" in completing the act.

There are a lot of reasons for the striking difference along gender lines, but one thing is clear: Men are in crisis mode, and that crisis starts from early adolescence and carries all the way through to old age.

Years ago, Christina Hoff Somers wrote a book called "The War On Boys." It was a welcome response to the volumes devoted to exposing the horrible state of girls in society, the Ophelias who were drowning in their own despair. Years of the second and third feminist waves were devoted to examining the particular problems facing females at school, at work, in love and at every level of their lives. Men were either ignored, ridiculed or in the worst case, demonized.

I remember the disturbing trend of sitcoms in the 70s and 80s that depicted the father figure not as a dependable and honored head of the family, but as a barely-tolerated buffoon. It was as if Hollywood needed to completely dismantle the solid, respectable role models from the Golden Age of Television shown in "Father Knows Best," "Leave It To Beaver," "My Three Sons" and similar beloved programs.

I can only imagine the impact it had on young men, who saw themselves portrayed as fools, or on the other end, manipulative predators. Virtually every episode of "Law and Order: SVU" shows male villains stalking their innocent female victims. And while Elliot was usually on the side of the angels, he was saddled with a violent temper while his partner Olivia was basically canonized. The fact that she was the product of a rape herself was not a coincidence.

The guys I knew generally swallowed the media malpractice with as much grace as they could muster. But as Christina Hoff Somers demonstrated, the "kids were not all right." Statistics showed over two decades ago that boys were having problems in school while girls were flourishing.'