The bigger question is why suicide is universally a "bad" to begin with. It shouldn't be seen as sinful (by pretty much the entire psych community) to simply admit that suicides across all ages and demographics happen, and that at a certain point changing society to prevent these kinda of acts simply isn't worth it.
As to men in the older age demo committing the most of these - I mean doesn't that make sense? They are slowly aging / dying, they have nothing to live for, in a different society this could even be seen as the conclusion of a life well lived
Thank you for this important piece! As an high school educator for 35 years , I have sadly lost a few too many kids to Suicide. For years I’d invite our local Suicide education specialist to speak but sadly they are just too busy nowadays to come into the classroom. Each year I show the excellent film, “The mask you live in” and then we discuss the importance of understanding all our roles in addressing restrictive masculinity, which is sadly at the root of why so many more boys complete Suicide than girls.
Men have always been disposable. Until the next war, no one will care about their suffering. We never have. This is life. Men need to accept this. Women want a new world with a few high status men. It makes sense that many men would choose to exit. That is the reality of our new world. Feminists know this is happening. To them it is a feature, but they are wise enough not to gloat. People do not care about young men, and they never will. A few will grow up into status, and the rest are disposable. Welcome to Progressive America.
I just asked a popular AI, "What groups suffer the most from suicide?" I received the response posted below. Looks like it gathered this information from the CDC's website. And not surprising that AI merely reflects the bias of our supposed public health experts.
Key groups that often experience higher rates of suicide include:
All the AI tools have been hard-coded to spew out creepy, bizarre ideology on race. Remember Google's tool that displayed photos of African Nazi's and female Pope's? They cannot handle anything remotely similar to reality. They figure that if they lie enough to screwed over minorities they can trick them into not complaining. The Progressive agenda is all about the Big Lie.
An unfortonate side effect to women entering more of the roles that men have had in the past. It might be worth looking at why women have had lower rates in the past and trying to emulate that more in men.
The other large difference in men and women is gun ownership. Men having...ok a quick google and I think women are catching up there too.
"Men who own handguns are eight times more likely to die of gun suicides than men who don’t own handguns, and women who own handguns are 35 times more likely than women who don’t."
"The study, which was published June 4 in The New England Journal of Medicine, analyzed data on handgun acquisitions and deaths in a cohort of 26.3 million adult residents of California who had not previously owned handguns."
There's a big world outside your country. I'm in Australia where we have similar suicide rates but very little gun ownership. Those who are determined to do it will find a way.
That’s sad but does not disprove the fact that you would see even more if everyone had a gun at home. Eliminating guns won’t eliminate suicide but it will make it less likely.
I think the message that men and boys have always got is that you are on your own. Boyhood is a preparation for being on your own. In western civilisation, men treat other men as though they should be capable of a substantial level of independence and see male dependency as an unwelcome, even immoral burden. This extends to social policy.
For men, there is a moral force and a source of purpose and strength to the idea of independence. Men are usually okay with the idea of supporting men with SERIOUS problems, but because such support is not a part of their MO, when they encounter such a situation, they often don't know what to do. But men who are good at that do get respect.
Where this differs from women, is that women are used to the idea of dependency and so are open both to discussing it and organising to escape it. Yet men remain on their own. Unions are a traditional
means for men to organise but it is effective in only a few sectors.
Contrary to the received wisdom, a lot of men also feel responsible in a practical
manner for the women in their lives and like to help them. Perhaps part of the resentment of feminism, is a perception amongst men that notwithstanding their best efforts, the women's movement portrays men as oppressors.
Men have often looked to women for the emotional support which is not available from other men, but certainly a mainstream strand of feminism deprecates this as unwanted "emotional labour" and portrays women's support role to men as a one way street they are better off without - "a women needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Women are of course far less economically dependent on men than 70 years ago and we all know there is a gulf of expectations opening up between the sexes.
So if you mix in the extent to which the position of working class men has been undermined by the manner in which the labour market has developed in the last 40 years, the spiralling divorce rate and single parenthood, father absence, drug and alcohol abuse, the decline of friendship which is a feature of the ever increasing commoditisation of social
life, the demands of the long hours culture in the work you can get and the total
lack of interest in all this shown by government, you have a very toxic brew.
Trump is IMO wholly toxic, but he is doing well amongst men because he really is the only one saying to men "I've got your back" even though what he's got for your back is a knife to stab you with after he's had your vote. So it appears there is really no-one in the political field who is addressing men's needs. Whereas the women's movement, with numerous male allies, is very effective at raising women's issues. A man's opennes to women's social perspectives is often a marker of his suitability for employment and promotion.
To address this, men need to do something which is very difficult and start discussing with eachother the question: "Look - why is this so hard?" Modern feminism may be irritating but it isn't the source of your problems. The problem is that you have been radically disempowered by business and a government in the pocket of corporations and the wealthy. I'm not at all sure how that can be resolved. But this is not your fault. Acknowledging and discussing it is a beginning. Blaming other people who are also struggling in life or "punching down", is doing your master's bidding.
"In our exploration to find truth, it is critical to address the many filtered layers of media influencing, academic conjuring, and political maneuvering that marginalizes the boys and men in our culture. It’s no wonder boys and young men feel like they are at the center of nothingness, that they are a political football, the media’s masculine trope, and an academic piñata." From my piece Soft-Censoring the Male and the Masculine in our Culture (https://open.substack.com/pub/gibm/p/soft-censoring-the-male-and-the-masculine?r=7v0pb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).
Apart from many question marks around the direction correlation between self-harm and the use of social media, as presented by other scholars, the question is why this issue continues to be skewed by some of the most vocal critics on the topic? In every single newspaper piece, Jonathan Haidt writes how girls are hit the hardest by rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm. I also heard him say in an interview that his son is allowed a smartphone at the age of 14, the daughter at 16. What is behind this wilful misrepresentation?
Well done Richard. To be honest I’ve been disappointed with some of your earlier writing for not being as specific and clear - this is spot on.
Unfortunately for those of us who’ve read and wondered and seen reality for a decade or more - this is nothing new. Boys are worth less, always have been, and pointing it out will only get you problems. Ask Farrell.
Let’s see how much flack you get for this piece.
The few percentage of alpha males and their allies the vast majority of females will continue to put their energy money and PR presence on their true love - themselves and their daughters. Our boys will be sent to war, the streets, and treated like second class laborers.
"In our exploration to find truth, it is critical to address the many filtered layers of media influencing, academic conjuring, and political maneuvering that marginalizes the boys and men in our culture. It’s no wonder boys and young men feel like they are at the center of nothingness, that they are a political football, the media’s masculine trope, and an academic piñata." From my piece Soft-Censoring the Male and the Masculine in our Culture (https://open.substack.com/pub/gibm/p/soft-censoring-the-male-and-the-masculine?r=7v0pb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).
Read a bunch of the comments. Ugh. We collectively waste a lot of energy on looking for who is to blame with this kind of sadness. My guess is- all of us. I think it is best to just put our energy toward solutions.
My choice is to make an effort to reach back and help those who are navigating their way. These young people need more mentors, role models, elders. They are lost and social media is not helping.
Parents are trying too- they really are. They need and want our help.
Join a program that reaches out to youth as they navigate life. Or start your own organization if you can’t find one. I have started two. The folks coming up behind us are so appreciative of our time and energy. You can be the change.
We absolutely need more mentors and more truth. "In our exploration to find truth, it is critical to address the many filtered layers of media influencing, academic conjuring, and political maneuvering that marginalizes the boys and men in our culture. It’s no wonder boys and young men feel like they are at the center of nothingness, that they are a political football, the media’s masculine trope, and an academic piñata." From my piece Soft-Censoring the Male and the Masculine in our Culture (https://open.substack.com/pub/gibm/p/soft-censoring-the-male-and-the-masculine?r=7v0pb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).
the media has an inordinate, prurient fascination with body image dysmorphia among teen girls who then commit suicide...it's not even clear that anyone has proven such a link, but the hypothesis fascinates people. In the 1980s there was a similar explosion of interest in anorexic teen girls as if female self-destruction requires deep investigation but not male self-destruction...
Good point James. "In our exploration to find truth, it is critical to address the many filtered layers of media influencing, academic conjuring, and political maneuvering that marginalizes the boys and men in our culture. It’s no wonder boys and young men feel like they are at the center of nothingness, that they are a political football, the media’s masculine trope, and an academic piñata." From my piece Soft-Censoring the Male and the Masculine in our Culture (https://open.substack.com/pub/gibm/p/soft-censoring-the-male-and-the-masculine?r=7v0pb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).
"About one in four transgender students said they had attempted suicide in the past year, compared with 11 percent of cisgender girls and 5 percent of cisgender boys."
the article says nothing about the actual suicide rate
Richard Reeves took notice of an article I wrote in May of 2023 about a boy who took his own life after a false allegation. The two of us spoke a day or two after it was published and the tendency of the media to engage in a type of selective and deceptive reporting when it comes to male and female suicide data. The piece was certainly tactful as well, and Reeves complimented the piece because—although it acknowledged the greater male disparities—it did not discount female mental health as an important issue.
Take a look at this piece today if you can: "In our exploration to find truth, it is critical to address the many filtered layers of media influencing, academic conjuring, and political maneuvering that marginalizes the boys and men in our culture. It’s no wonder boys and young men feel like they are at the center of nothingness, that they are a political football, the media’s masculine trope, and an academic piñata." From my piece Soft-Censoring the Male and the Masculine in our Culture (https://open.substack.com/pub/gibm/p/soft-censoring-the-male-and-the-masculine?r=7v0pb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).
This is reality. It has always been this way. We are simply reverting to the mean. Life will be easier for the men who survive. Those pushing for the advancement of women know this, and they like it. It is foolish to imagine otherwise. Complaining will not change reality. We live in a world where many men have become disposable.
I really appreciate your work. Quite often I think what you write represents a "narrative violation". In general people favor simple stories, not "both things can be true".
The bigger question is why suicide is universally a "bad" to begin with. It shouldn't be seen as sinful (by pretty much the entire psych community) to simply admit that suicides across all ages and demographics happen, and that at a certain point changing society to prevent these kinda of acts simply isn't worth it.
As to men in the older age demo committing the most of these - I mean doesn't that make sense? They are slowly aging / dying, they have nothing to live for, in a different society this could even be seen as the conclusion of a life well lived
Thank you for this important piece! As an high school educator for 35 years , I have sadly lost a few too many kids to Suicide. For years I’d invite our local Suicide education specialist to speak but sadly they are just too busy nowadays to come into the classroom. Each year I show the excellent film, “The mask you live in” and then we discuss the importance of understanding all our roles in addressing restrictive masculinity, which is sadly at the root of why so many more boys complete Suicide than girls.
Men have always been disposable. Until the next war, no one will care about their suffering. We never have. This is life. Men need to accept this. Women want a new world with a few high status men. It makes sense that many men would choose to exit. That is the reality of our new world. Feminists know this is happening. To them it is a feature, but they are wise enough not to gloat. People do not care about young men, and they never will. A few will grow up into status, and the rest are disposable. Welcome to Progressive America.
I just asked a popular AI, "What groups suffer the most from suicide?" I received the response posted below. Looks like it gathered this information from the CDC's website. And not surprising that AI merely reflects the bias of our supposed public health experts.
Key groups that often experience higher rates of suicide include:
1. Young Adults and Adolescents (aged 15-24),
2. Older adults,
3. Members of the LGBTQ+ Community,
4. Veterans,
5. People with Mental Health Disorders,
6. People struggling with addiction,
7. Racial and Ethnic Minorities, and
8. People experiencing economic hardship.
All the AI tools have been hard-coded to spew out creepy, bizarre ideology on race. Remember Google's tool that displayed photos of African Nazi's and female Pope's? They cannot handle anything remotely similar to reality. They figure that if they lie enough to screwed over minorities they can trick them into not complaining. The Progressive agenda is all about the Big Lie.
An unfortonate side effect to women entering more of the roles that men have had in the past. It might be worth looking at why women have had lower rates in the past and trying to emulate that more in men.
The other large difference in men and women is gun ownership. Men having...ok a quick google and I think women are catching up there too.
Guns have little to do with it. The suicide rates are pretty much the same regardless of levels of gun ownership.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html
It doesn't take long to find that is incorrect.
"Men who own handguns are eight times more likely to die of gun suicides than men who don’t own handguns, and women who own handguns are 35 times more likely than women who don’t."
"The study, which was published June 4 in The New England Journal of Medicine, analyzed data on handgun acquisitions and deaths in a cohort of 26.3 million adult residents of California who had not previously owned handguns."
There's a big world outside your country. I'm in Australia where we have similar suicide rates but very little gun ownership. Those who are determined to do it will find a way.
I’m actually Canadian. Australia has a fraction of the gun ownership of America but you’re welcome to believe what you want.
I'm aware of hundreds of suicides through work with male victims of sexual abuse. Not a single gun among them.
That’s sad but does not disprove the fact that you would see even more if everyone had a gun at home. Eliminating guns won’t eliminate suicide but it will make it less likely.
Take care
Great article. For too many, only one type of gender gap matters. I appreciate you telling it like it is.
I think the message that men and boys have always got is that you are on your own. Boyhood is a preparation for being on your own. In western civilisation, men treat other men as though they should be capable of a substantial level of independence and see male dependency as an unwelcome, even immoral burden. This extends to social policy.
For men, there is a moral force and a source of purpose and strength to the idea of independence. Men are usually okay with the idea of supporting men with SERIOUS problems, but because such support is not a part of their MO, when they encounter such a situation, they often don't know what to do. But men who are good at that do get respect.
Where this differs from women, is that women are used to the idea of dependency and so are open both to discussing it and organising to escape it. Yet men remain on their own. Unions are a traditional
means for men to organise but it is effective in only a few sectors.
Contrary to the received wisdom, a lot of men also feel responsible in a practical
manner for the women in their lives and like to help them. Perhaps part of the resentment of feminism, is a perception amongst men that notwithstanding their best efforts, the women's movement portrays men as oppressors.
Men have often looked to women for the emotional support which is not available from other men, but certainly a mainstream strand of feminism deprecates this as unwanted "emotional labour" and portrays women's support role to men as a one way street they are better off without - "a women needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Women are of course far less economically dependent on men than 70 years ago and we all know there is a gulf of expectations opening up between the sexes.
So if you mix in the extent to which the position of working class men has been undermined by the manner in which the labour market has developed in the last 40 years, the spiralling divorce rate and single parenthood, father absence, drug and alcohol abuse, the decline of friendship which is a feature of the ever increasing commoditisation of social
life, the demands of the long hours culture in the work you can get and the total
lack of interest in all this shown by government, you have a very toxic brew.
Trump is IMO wholly toxic, but he is doing well amongst men because he really is the only one saying to men "I've got your back" even though what he's got for your back is a knife to stab you with after he's had your vote. So it appears there is really no-one in the political field who is addressing men's needs. Whereas the women's movement, with numerous male allies, is very effective at raising women's issues. A man's opennes to women's social perspectives is often a marker of his suitability for employment and promotion.
To address this, men need to do something which is very difficult and start discussing with eachother the question: "Look - why is this so hard?" Modern feminism may be irritating but it isn't the source of your problems. The problem is that you have been radically disempowered by business and a government in the pocket of corporations and the wealthy. I'm not at all sure how that can be resolved. But this is not your fault. Acknowledging and discussing it is a beginning. Blaming other people who are also struggling in life or "punching down", is doing your master's bidding.
"In our exploration to find truth, it is critical to address the many filtered layers of media influencing, academic conjuring, and political maneuvering that marginalizes the boys and men in our culture. It’s no wonder boys and young men feel like they are at the center of nothingness, that they are a political football, the media’s masculine trope, and an academic piñata." From my piece Soft-Censoring the Male and the Masculine in our Culture (https://open.substack.com/pub/gibm/p/soft-censoring-the-male-and-the-masculine?r=7v0pb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).
Apart from many question marks around the direction correlation between self-harm and the use of social media, as presented by other scholars, the question is why this issue continues to be skewed by some of the most vocal critics on the topic? In every single newspaper piece, Jonathan Haidt writes how girls are hit the hardest by rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm. I also heard him say in an interview that his son is allowed a smartphone at the age of 14, the daughter at 16. What is behind this wilful misrepresentation?
The root cause would be society's focus on the appearance of women while not caring that much about the appearance of men.
Well done Richard. To be honest I’ve been disappointed with some of your earlier writing for not being as specific and clear - this is spot on.
Unfortunately for those of us who’ve read and wondered and seen reality for a decade or more - this is nothing new. Boys are worth less, always have been, and pointing it out will only get you problems. Ask Farrell.
Let’s see how much flack you get for this piece.
The few percentage of alpha males and their allies the vast majority of females will continue to put their energy money and PR presence on their true love - themselves and their daughters. Our boys will be sent to war, the streets, and treated like second class laborers.
"In our exploration to find truth, it is critical to address the many filtered layers of media influencing, academic conjuring, and political maneuvering that marginalizes the boys and men in our culture. It’s no wonder boys and young men feel like they are at the center of nothingness, that they are a political football, the media’s masculine trope, and an academic piñata." From my piece Soft-Censoring the Male and the Masculine in our Culture (https://open.substack.com/pub/gibm/p/soft-censoring-the-male-and-the-masculine?r=7v0pb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).
TLDR, it's propaganda
Read a bunch of the comments. Ugh. We collectively waste a lot of energy on looking for who is to blame with this kind of sadness. My guess is- all of us. I think it is best to just put our energy toward solutions.
My choice is to make an effort to reach back and help those who are navigating their way. These young people need more mentors, role models, elders. They are lost and social media is not helping.
Parents are trying too- they really are. They need and want our help.
Join a program that reaches out to youth as they navigate life. Or start your own organization if you can’t find one. I have started two. The folks coming up behind us are so appreciative of our time and energy. You can be the change.
We absolutely need more mentors and more truth. "In our exploration to find truth, it is critical to address the many filtered layers of media influencing, academic conjuring, and political maneuvering that marginalizes the boys and men in our culture. It’s no wonder boys and young men feel like they are at the center of nothingness, that they are a political football, the media’s masculine trope, and an academic piñata." From my piece Soft-Censoring the Male and the Masculine in our Culture (https://open.substack.com/pub/gibm/p/soft-censoring-the-male-and-the-masculine?r=7v0pb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).
I lost two boys. My third child was an IVF gender selected girl. I knew exactly what I was doing: having a child that had a chance to survive.
the media has an inordinate, prurient fascination with body image dysmorphia among teen girls who then commit suicide...it's not even clear that anyone has proven such a link, but the hypothesis fascinates people. In the 1980s there was a similar explosion of interest in anorexic teen girls as if female self-destruction requires deep investigation but not male self-destruction...
Good point James. "In our exploration to find truth, it is critical to address the many filtered layers of media influencing, academic conjuring, and political maneuvering that marginalizes the boys and men in our culture. It’s no wonder boys and young men feel like they are at the center of nothingness, that they are a political football, the media’s masculine trope, and an academic piñata." From my piece Soft-Censoring the Male and the Masculine in our Culture (https://open.substack.com/pub/gibm/p/soft-censoring-the-male-and-the-masculine?r=7v0pb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).
the New York Times did the same thing 3 days ago!
"About one in four transgender students said they had attempted suicide in the past year, compared with 11 percent of cisgender girls and 5 percent of cisgender boys."
the article says nothing about the actual suicide rate
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/08/health/transgender-teenagers-cdc-survey.html
"Attempted" is a useless statistic with no predictive value for actual suicides. That data point is literally useless.
Richard Reeves took notice of an article I wrote in May of 2023 about a boy who took his own life after a false allegation. The two of us spoke a day or two after it was published and the tendency of the media to engage in a type of selective and deceptive reporting when it comes to male and female suicide data. The piece was certainly tactful as well, and Reeves complimented the piece because—although it acknowledged the greater male disparities—it did not discount female mental health as an important issue.
Take a look at this piece today if you can: "In our exploration to find truth, it is critical to address the many filtered layers of media influencing, academic conjuring, and political maneuvering that marginalizes the boys and men in our culture. It’s no wonder boys and young men feel like they are at the center of nothingness, that they are a political football, the media’s masculine trope, and an academic piñata." From my piece Soft-Censoring the Male and the Masculine in our Culture (https://open.substack.com/pub/gibm/p/soft-censoring-the-male-and-the-masculine?r=7v0pb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).
This is reality. It has always been this way. We are simply reverting to the mean. Life will be easier for the men who survive. Those pushing for the advancement of women know this, and they like it. It is foolish to imagine otherwise. Complaining will not change reality. We live in a world where many men have become disposable.
Only feelings matter, not actions - didn’t you know?
I really appreciate your work. Quite often I think what you write represents a "narrative violation". In general people favor simple stories, not "both things can be true".