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So how do you explain the difference between male and female? Women has lower expectations of life or they hit their expectations better than men in general?
by hising 12y ago
So how do you explain the difference between male and female? Women has lower expectations of life or they hit their expectations better than men in general?
- adventured 12y agoWomen also take anti-depressants at a higher rate than men, likely preventing some percentage of suicides. Men often seem to regard anti-depressant use as coming with a stigma or being an admission of weakness.
- hising 12y agoAre there any good numbers on this?
- M8 12y agoThis might be sexist, but some people claim that women never blame themselves for any life problems and find a way of justifying themselves no matter what.
- vacri 12y agoIt's outrageously sexist. Plenty of women blame themselves for problems that aren't their fault - it's one of the reasons why many women stay in physically abusive relationships.
- reitanqild 12y agoMore importantly it is wrong.
- yummyfajitas 12y agoWhy do you believe it is wrong? Is this merely dueling anecdotes (plus vacri's accusation of sexism, as if that were a real argument), or is there actual data?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- reitanqild 12y agoWhy do you believe it is wrong? Is this merely dueling anecdotes (plus vacri's accusation of sexism, as if that were a real argument), or is there actual data? Because of the word "never"[0]. That means it is trivial to prove the statement to be false as I and others have plenty of examples that falsifies the statement. [0]: M8 says: "some people claim that women never blame themselves" emphasis mine Edit: And I didn't downvote any of you, someone who didn't care to say why did.
- yummyfajitas 12y agoAh, ok - that seems right. I too can name a single woman who has blamed herself at least once, which defeats his weak man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Contemporary_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Contemporary_work). However I can't easily refute a pretty trivial steelman (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man) of his position, namely "women are less likely to blame themselves than men".
- codeduck 12y agoAs a generalisation, women are more likely to reach out for emotional or psychiatric help than men are.
- coldtea 12y agoOr women get kids and the whole protection instinct comes forward, which doesn't happen to the same degree for men...
- endtime 12y agoI dunno, maybe I'm unusual but I felt that instinct when I got married (actually, when I knew I was going to). Having kids only strengthened it.
- danieltillett 12y agoMost suicide attempts fail. Men just happen to "fail" less often than women. This is not a good outcome. Every failed suicide attempt is really a good outcome.
- unstabilo 12y agoWomen tend to choose less effective methods, like wrist-cutting or sleeping pills, while men are more likely to choose hanging or shoot themselves.
- danieltillett 12y agoThe interesting question here is why the difference in method choice.
- squids 12y agoWell suicide can either be a cry for help or a decision that life isn't worth living. Maybe more men decide the latter. I also think the financial/work aspect is being overlooked. At around 40 a man will be most likely to have kids/mortgage/wife to support. For him, it looks like another 25 years of the same 9 to 5 drudgery. This is probably made worse by the face that his spouse is at home or working part time looking after the kids and is pretty much put to pasture, the hard part of her life is over, alot of women don't pick up their career after having kids and will rely on their spouse for support.
- unstabilo 12y agoBasically, what user squids wrote. For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- hising 12y agoSo there are as many attempts by women and men in that age? That is interesting.
- DanBC 12y agoThere are a variety of attempts to explain the difference. I'm not sure how true any of these are but: 1) women self harm more frequenty than men, which means it's more likely that they get early intervention and help. 2) women communicate better than men meaning they get constant low level support and easier path into treatment 3) men use methods that are more lethal and less survivable. 4) stigma, discrimination, lack of understanding, etc. many people have no idea what mental health treatment involves.
- hising 12y ago1. Could be, I don't know the numbers, what about alcohol as self harm/medication? 2. Could be, I don't know the numbers but it sounds reasonable 3. Could be, then we should see that the numbers of suicidal attempts were as high for women in the same age. 4. Should be the same for women and men right?
- lmm 12y ago> 4. Should be the same for women and men right? I don't think it is. Culturally a man who's going for therapy is much more stigmatized than a woman doing so.
- hising 12y agoSo the next question is, if this is true, why is that? Seems strange.
- unstabilo 12y ago3. The number of reported suicidal attempts are actually higher for women.
- hising 12y agoWhere did you find that information?
- 12y ago
- brc 12y agoI think they hit their expectations more often. Lots of women develop goals of having a family, a decent husband and stability in their life. Not all, obviously, but it is a common enough set of goals. Lots of women achieve these goals and gain a state of relative happiness. Lots of men develop goals of things like sporting prowess, business success and material wealth. These things are much less common to achieve than a decent family life. I think underlying it all is the fact that men are also generally more capable of violent acts, probably including towards themselves.
- pervycreeper 12y ago>men are also generally more capable of violent acts Do you have a citation for that claim? Also, what distinguishes a "violent" method of killing oneself from a "nonviolent" one?
- brc 12y agoSeriously? How about every war ever started since the beginning of history? Is that enough citation? A violent method of killing is shooting, hanging, etc. A non violent one is sleeping pills or gassing.
- chadzawistowski 12y agoProbably an issue of wording here. I would have said "men are generally more likely to use violent methods of suicide", which is in fact the case. Obviously both genders are capable of violence.
- cpursley 12y agoThat's an interesting observation on goals.