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1. I have plenty of bones to pick with Haidt, but he's not one to deemphasize male suffering for the purposes of politically correct rhetoric. He explicitly poi

1. I have plenty of bones to pick with Haidt, but he's not one to deemphasize male suffering for the purposes of politically correct rhetoric. He explicitly points out in the article that even now, teen male suicide far outpaces teen female suicide. 2. It is genuinely interesting if we're moving from a 4:1 to 2:1 M:F suicide rate, and I think that can be placed on social media. And if there is a single concrete cause of the change in ratio, that increase in female suicide rates can be reversed. That would be a good thing, even if it only improves young women's lives. 3. As unfair as it is, people don't give a shit about male suicide rates; the general response is "they deserve it," and no argumentation is going to change their minds. If people start seeing suicide as an issue that affects both sexes, perhaps that can provide the basis for some policy that will have the unintended effect of helping male suicide rates.

p-e-w 3y ago
> He explicitly points out in the article that even now, teen male suicide far outpaces teen female suicide. Which makes the headline, which is the only thing the vast majority of people will look at (something the author is well aware of), even more disingenuous bordering on dishonest.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- scarmig 3y ago
  There have been literally thousands of articles and blog posts that point out in the headline that men kill themselves far more than women do. People don't care. Maybe there's an advantage to identifying a primarily male-affecting issue with a group deemed socially more worthy of sympathy? I'm not saying I like it, but there's a massive crisis, and it's better to pose the crisis in a way that garners sympathy, even if that means working with unjust public biases instead of working against them.
  - jakderrida 3y ago
    >There have been literally thousands of articles and blog posts that point out in the headline that men kill themselves far more than women do. People don't care. So when they don't make it the headline, it's a conspiracy. When they make it the headline, it's still a conspiracy? At a certain point, we need to accept the fact that you're the one that's hopeless.
fieldcny 3y ago
#3 is an absurd statement, as a society we do not say that men deserve it. Are there individuals that do say that? If they do they are not good humans and as such their point of view doesn’t really matter. There is a broader point that is being missed and that is, in the Anglo-sphere people don’t care much about mental health at all, we stigmatize mental health as a weakness (thanks puritans!), so yes men don’t seek access to mental healthcare as openly as women and that drives other outcomes like higher suicide rates, higher levels of stress related medical issues and in the extremes mass-shootings.
- scarmig 3y ago
  We absolutely do say exactly that, in (lack of) action and word. And the people who shrug at male suicide do matter: they design public policy that results in the outcomes. A "fun" fact: the majority of men who commit suicide do seek mental health services. And the mental health system fails them. Shifting it purely to a matter of "men are just too toxic to seek mental health services" is just a thinly veiled way to blame men for their suicides.
  - atmavatar 3y ago
    I'd like to think that few people go so far as to suggest men who commit suicide deserve it. That said, there's definitely a general apathy towards male suicide (and fatalities in general), naturally following from the fact that men are and always have been considered disposable.
    - scarmig 3y ago
      I'd concede that it's rare (though not unheard of) for someone to explicitly say "men who commit suicide deserve it." But that's too narrow a definition. It's incredibly common (including in the comment I was responding to) for someone to say "men have high suicide rates because they don't seek mental healthcare" or "men need to build stronger social circles" or variations. The key point is that it puts the onus on individual men, not on society at large. With other groups, at the very least the framing would be "X group doesn't have as much access to mental health services as other groups." It's the agentic framing of male suicide rates that I'm condemning, because the reigning ideology is that every man is a hyperagent and any misfortune that befalls him is a result of his personal failings.
tuatoru 3y ago
> 3. ... people don't give a shit about male suicide rates; the general response is "they deserve it," Yes, for decades this attitude has been caricatured by the fake-but-entirely-too-plausible news headline "Male suicide rate increasing; women most affected". Something I would expect to see in the Guardian if not elsewhere.
- scarmig 3y ago
  Reminds me of the famous feminist quote: "Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children." Source: https://clintonwhitehouse3.archives.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/generalspeeches/1998/19981117.html https://clintonwhitehouse3.archives.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/ht...
  - jakderrida 3y ago
    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-victims-of-war/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-victims-of... Holy crap, it's true. Oh well. Still would have been a thousand times better than Trump.

p-e-w 3y ago

> He explicitly points out in the article that even now, teen male suicide far outpaces teen female suicide. Which makes the headline, which is the only thing the vast majority of people will look at (something the author is well aware of), even more disingenuous bordering on dishonest.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
scarmig 3y ago
There have been literally thousands of articles and blog posts that point out in the headline that men kill themselves far more than women do. People don't care. Maybe there's an advantage to identifying a primarily male-affecting issue with a group deemed socially more worthy of sympathy? I'm not saying I like it, but there's a massive crisis, and it's better to pose the crisis in a way that garners sympathy, even if that means working with unjust public biases instead of working against them.
- jakderrida 3y ago
  >There have been literally thousands of articles and blog posts that point out in the headline that men kill themselves far more than women do. People don't care. So when they don't make it the headline, it's a conspiracy. When they make it the headline, it's still a conspiracy? At a certain point, we need to accept the fact that you're the one that's hopeless.

fieldcny 3y ago

#3 is an absurd statement, as a society we do not say that men deserve it. Are there individuals that do say that? If they do they are not good humans and as such their point of view doesn’t really matter. There is a broader point that is being missed and that is, in the Anglo-sphere people don’t care much about mental health at all, we stigmatize mental health as a weakness (thanks puritans!), so yes men don’t seek access to mental healthcare as openly as women and that drives other outcomes like higher suicide rates, higher levels of stress related medical issues and in the extremes mass-shootings.

scarmig 3y ago
We absolutely do say exactly that, in (lack of) action and word. And the people who shrug at male suicide do matter: they design public policy that results in the outcomes. A "fun" fact: the majority of men who commit suicide do seek mental health services. And the mental health system fails them. Shifting it purely to a matter of "men are just too toxic to seek mental health services" is just a thinly veiled way to blame men for their suicides.
- atmavatar 3y ago
  I'd like to think that few people go so far as to suggest men who commit suicide deserve it. That said, there's definitely a general apathy towards male suicide (and fatalities in general), naturally following from the fact that men are and always have been considered disposable.
  - scarmig 3y ago
    I'd concede that it's rare (though not unheard of) for someone to explicitly say "men who commit suicide deserve it." But that's too narrow a definition. It's incredibly common (including in the comment I was responding to) for someone to say "men have high suicide rates because they don't seek mental healthcare" or "men need to build stronger social circles" or variations. The key point is that it puts the onus on individual men, not on society at large. With other groups, at the very least the framing would be "X group doesn't have as much access to mental health services as other groups." It's the agentic framing of male suicide rates that I'm condemning, because the reigning ideology is that every man is a hyperagent and any misfortune that befalls him is a result of his personal failings.

tuatoru 3y ago

> 3. ... people don't give a shit about male suicide rates; the general response is "they deserve it," Yes, for decades this attitude has been caricatured by the fake-but-entirely-too-plausible news headline "Male suicide rate increasing; women most affected". Something I would expect to see in the Guardian if not elsewhere.

scarmig 3y ago
Reminds me of the famous feminist quote: "Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children." Source: https://clintonwhitehouse3.archives.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/generalspeeches/1998/19981117.html https://clintonwhitehouse3.archives.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/ht...
- jakderrida 3y ago
  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-victims-of-war/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-victims-of... Holy crap, it's true. Oh well. Still would have been a thousand times better than Trump.