A 17 year old boy from my area went up into the woods a couple of days ago with three guns. The search party found his frozen body the next day. He didn't die from exposure but bled to death from a self-inflicted gun shot wound.
Several months ago, a neighbor's son, also 17 years old, got into a fight with his older brother, went downstairs and shot himself in the head in his closet.
About a year and a half ago, another neighbor's son got in a fight with his parents and jumped out of the car as it was still in motion. The car wasn't going very fast, but his foot got caught and he was dragged across the pavement. Those few seconds from the time he jumped and his parents were able to stop the car cost him his life.
A man I knew, a really good, nice man, a kind and devoted father, son and husband, hung himself some months back when his business failed.
And a very, very dear friend of mine, despaired by hurts and losses he could no longer stand to bear, tried to kill himself recently.
Everywhere I look I see the deaths and blood of men.....the tragic and untimely demises of beautiful, precious lives.
Incidentally, I don't live in some poverty stricken area where hopelessness and despair are so thick that they hang palpable in the air. I live in a conservative, religious, small town, middle class America, where all our kids know they can look forward to going to college should they choose, where we still eat dinners as a family at night and we know each and every one of our neighbors and their children by name.
Yet, even here, we can't stop our boys from dying tragic, unnecessary deaths. We can't infuse them with the same hope and self-worth that we've managed to instill in our daughters. Our daughters aren't dying. Our daughters aren't going out into the woods and putting guns to their heads.
No matter how much love and support we give our boys, we can't stand as a barrier and protect them from the constant barrage of negative, anti-male stereotypes. We can't protect their hearts and minds from the pain and disillusionment they're sure to find in a world that simply doesn't care about them any further than as a means to an ends; a way to move forth industry, bodies to send to war to further political causes, or, should they fail to prove constructive, to fill our jails.
From ages 10 to 14, the rate of suicide among boys is twice as high as among girls. From ages 15 to 19, four times as high and from ages 20 to 24, six times as high.
Where are our emergency measures to combat this crisis? Where are the commissions, the funding, the programs and the public concern?
William S. Pollack, the director of the Centers for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School has noted, "There’s no doubt that in relation to suicide, boys and young men are in a crisis," said Pollack. "And almost nothing has been done to remediate it from the gender perspective."
So while we spend millions on programs empowering and furthering the interests of women and girls, hardly a finger has been raised or a dime spent to help boys and men that are in crisis. Instead, we devote our time and resources to telling boys that they are all potential abusers, rapists and murderers......frightening, violent things that women and children need to be protected from.
In 2005, in the U.S., 25,907 men killed themselves. For perspective, that is roughly 21 times the number of women who were killed by intimate partners in the U.S. in the same year.
Because of the 1200 or so women who are killed by their partners each year, we have massive campaigns addressing violence against women.
What do we have to address the 25,907 lives of men that were ended needlessly? Again I ask, where are the commissions, the funding, the programs and the public concern?
Why do we stand idly by while our boys and men flounder in emotional pain, despair and hopelessness?
Life is precious and I am heartbroken and angry for the loss of these lives. I am angry that nothing has been done to address this crisis. I am angry for the growing number of lives that will be lost because they won't be deemed important enough to do anything about.
Why don't we do anything?
Because to do something would mean admitting we've been wrong. It would mean taking a long, painfully honest look at the hatred and disdain that we have so willingly and thoughtlessly infused into our society. It would mean addressing the horrible, destructive neglect and damage that has been wrought upon boys, men, fathers and husbands.....apparently, it's simply easier just to look away.
This time of the year can be especially hard for men who are alone; who have been alienated from the lives of their families and children. We need to remember the worth and value of the lives of men; to remember the little boys and young men who need nurturing, care, kindness and understanding; to remember that the lives of these men and boys are invaluable and irreplacable, Remember how important it is to show that they matter....especially in a world that doesn't.
Feminists vs Captain's Masts
2 hours ago
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9 comments:
Amfortas says:
Thank you Kim, not only for an excellent essay but for your loving kindness during my recent troubles. Your email to me in Hospital was a strong factor in the revovery of my spirit. It is a message I will treasure.
May Your God and mine smile on you - and on me too.
Well, Kim, every time I mention male youth suicide in any political setting I'm immediately reminded that girls attempt suicide more often. Go figure.
Something to consider meanwhile...
Some of the causal factors in male suicide are issues which are bordering on taboo in our communities.
Among adult males one of the major causes of suicide is having their kids taken from them. In Australia, as with all other English speaking countries, the agenda of the past four decades has been removing fathers from families. But we must never admit that this harms men. Recent Australian ads targeting male depression and suicide were very quickly disappeared when feminists complained. Showing a man breaking down to tears after handing the kids over was "demonising mothers". Tut tut! Musn't do that.
Another issue to consider is abuse. One of the major causes of the attempted female suicides I'm so often reminded of is the experience of abuse, often sexual. Consider how marginalised male victims of abuse, particularly those abused by women, tend to be in our communities.
If we can't acknowledge the things that cause suicide we have little chance of doing anything about suicide itself.
The real "final frontier" as far as gender equality is concerned is in our willingness to be compassionate toward the respective genders. It's a frontier that's yet to crest the horizon.
I'm surprised no one had commented yet here---I've suffered depression myself, although there was a period where life was going fairly well for a long stretch, 2009 was a hard go. I was laid off from a job that I loved, and within weeks almost lost a close relative twice---I'm still wondering if he's going to make it in the long term or not.
Part of the clandestine thing about men and suicide is guilt, shame, and pride. Pride, when someone would rather die than admit defeat in life. Shame, when every effort seems to be for naught.
Men are still expected to man up no matter what, and accept blame for just about everything. While it's true that there exist a few people (men or women) that are true hardshells, even the most ardent person can feel hopeless and helpless at crucial moments in life. Support is vital when those things happen but not always given, sadly.
Why don't we do anything?
Because men and boys have been, and always will be, the expendable gender. It's worth keeping us alive as long as we are useful and are at least marginally willing to commit to a life of servitude.
When a woman suffers from depression, even to the point of being homicidal, it's a medical condition that lead to tragic consequences, and a lot of speech balloons get floated that state that society failed them somehow; more frequently, her husband/boyfriend/father/son was at fault, and of course it's more than common to say that they deserved death at her hands.
For the males of the species, it's shame and an admonishment to suck it up and take it...oh, and take this handful of mood- and brain chemistry altering pills, and shut up.
I sometimes wonder if suicide was just a delay of the inevitable. Is it not better to determine your own end, rather than let society make it for you and sentence you to slavery?
I have to wonder...
"Why don't we do anything?"
Because women could not care less about their children. They are that crap now.
Meanwhile. I have been working my arse off these last 18 months to save mens lives. I have now proven that a man can deny jurisdiction of FC in Australia. I have developed the remedy for men from the femnazi state the Illuminati has put in place. No women and very few men helped me get this far.
We are going to destroy the femnazi state and I hope to save the lives of many men in the process.
I think men are more likely to succeed in suicide attempts because
1) Women tend to take pills and men tend to use guns. Guns have a higher success rate for obvious reasons.
2)Women are given more social outlets and are encouraged to talk their problems through, while men are expected to 'man up' and deal with their own emotions and problems.
I think a great deal of the second problem has its roots in the new double standard. Men are still expected to be "Father" with all the answers and all the responsibility, only now men get none of the respect that used to accompany all that extra responsibility.
Men are still "manning up" and not discussing their problems, but their problems are multiplying as divorce becomes more prevalent and laws are still in place favoring women. On the whole, I think this leaves men more alone than they have been in the past.
We have been headed this way for a very long time.
After the War Between The States, when Vaticanism and fatima exploded across the land, the view now pushed from the left was pushed from the right, if only in "positive" altruistic terms; the implication by omission was that, if you are not a debt-slave to a family, a church and the State, you are a generally worthless man meant only for the gutter and prisons.
Now, since sufferage and other forms of weakness-enablement have become law, men have no voice in the courts, in government unless echoing the screeds of emotionalist feminstaazi, or in the Church unless they are passive, obedient, gamma-male Earth-bitch-worshippers (once exclusive to Vaticanism, the original Mary-olatry line is now propounded as "global warming science" by spiritualists).
"The death of a thousand cuts is as lethal as beheading, it only takes longer."
I see your point and agree to some extent. However, I feel the disparity between male and female suicide rates has to do with how we raise our children. We raise boys to believe they have to be in charge, aggressive, and aren't allowed to talk about their feelings. It's this kind of pressure to dominate that, in my opinion, causes the problems. Men are taught that women are fragile creatures, and that we need their help to survive. This is why middle aged men who feel they've failed at work (laid off, business failed, didn't get a promotion) take their lives much more often than middle-aged women. Ironically, the death of the breadwinner puts the family in a worse off situation than if he'd have just took it in stride.
This constant brainwashing our society, and other societies past and present, drill into our boys' heads that they must always be the alpha and they must never speak of their feelings puts them in a bad situation. Clearly, not every man can be "in charge." Someone will be the boss, everyone else is an employee. And men have emotions, so asking them to be hidden forever causes unnecessary stress on top of the fact that it's just plain unfair.
While I see what you're saying, I actually believe that the encouragement of women to "be whatever they want to be" can be helpful in easing the stress from men. With a two-income household, one partner losing his job isn't going to be the downfall of the family; all the pressure doesn't ride on him. With the suggestion that women can take more charge of relationships and sex, some pressure is relieved from the man from having to feel like he has to gain the courage to ask a woman on a date.
Just another way to look at it.
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