A man walks into a hospital.

Doctor: "What symptoms do you have?"

Man: "Suicidal thoughts, self pity..."

Doctor: "So you have a runny nose?"

Man: "Yeah, that's it."

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This joke was shared on FB by a teacher, mother of three teenage boys. She is not a woke person or a feminist - she just thought it funny. (We live in a society where prison-rape jokes are primetime TV entertainment.)

I thought she should know better. I explained to her that suicide is the number two cause of death in boys and young men only after traffic accidents. I told her that her three boys are more likely to die as a result of suicide than as a result of an attack or stabbing, use of drugs, accidental poisoning, drowning, fall and any other kind of accident COMBINED.

You tell your boys to be careful, don't you? You worry they will take a dance drug and die of dehydration or that they will jump into a lake, drunk or overheated, and never emerge. But do you talk to them about suicide? Do they know where to get help in case they need it? Or do they expect to be ridiculed, the way they see it everywhere around them?

​

Talk to your boys about suicide.

Fuck misandry.

(And fuck feminism for blaming the victims.)

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1/ Cause of death by age and gender, EU, 2010.

2/ Some 80% of suicide victims in EU are men. Wikipedia attributed this to hegemonic masculinity.

3/ In the 30-34 age group, suicide becomes the #1 cause of death. Yet there is no wider public discussion, no campaigns, no outrage. Men taking their lives is perfectly normal.

4/ The numbers are slightly different in the US where suicides are pushed to #3 by homicides. (hashtag guns-are-human-rights /s )