"Women attempt suicide more than men"... no, they don't, sayeth the CDC

ILoveHate · 2013-07-27T00:25:06+00:00

Maybe I misread it but there was this part

During 2008-2009, an estimated 1.0 million (annual average) adult males in the United States (1.0% of the adult male population) made suicide plans in the past year. Among males, prevalence ranged from 0.1% in Georgia to 4.1% in Rhode Island. During 2008-2009, an estimated 1.2 million (annual average) adult females in the United States (1.0% of the female population) made suicide plans in the past year. Among females, prevalence ranged from 0.1% in Georgia to 3.1% in Nevada (Table 7).

Either way it's meaningless. Men are more likely to use guns to kill themselves or jump off buildings, etc while women are more likely to use some kind of poison like pills to overdose. Putting a gun to your head and then not pulling the trigger doesn't count as a suicide attempt since nobody in the world except that person will know. On the other hand, taking a shitload of pills and ending up in the ER will count as a suicide attempt. That's why women attempt it more than men, simply because it's easier to notice failed suicide attempts by women. And not to mention women's suicide attempts can fail and have a significant margin of failure. A bullet to the head doesn't have much room for failure. So where women have a chance to back out after attempting suicide, the men are already dead.

2013-07-27T04:52:57+00:00

The interesting part of this is that I've heard feminists try to spin these statistics to fry and make suicide seem like a female issue, however men are far more likely to actually succeed in killing themselves. So if we look at suicide as a gender issue, which we probably shouldn't since everyone deserves an equal amount of help with their mental issues, men are the ones who truly need help here.

kurzwaffle · 2013-07-27T07:48:46+00:00

Has anyone here heard of suicide by cop? That is when someone (usually a man) deliberately provokes a deadly response from law enforcement - baiting cops into killing. That's a very tricky form of suicide to determine.

Likewise, a lot of men while depressed or suicidal will behave in very reckless, aggressive ways. They will often lash out at others, rather than themselves. The stereotypical teenage girl who cuts her wrists is more noticed than the stereotypical teenage boy who goes outside and flings bricks through windows.

Because men more often act overtly and towards others, or engage in destructive behaviour we don't necessarily consider suicidal (e.g. excessive drinking, drug use, adrenaline-chasing behaviour like reckless driving), we sometimes find it difficult to notice what are probably male suicide attempts. Often, these people end up in jail, instead, or are viewed as violent thugs (which, to be fair, some of them are).

Combine this with the notion that the man who takes the gun out from his mouth is rarely counted as an attempt vs the girl who ends up in the ER, and the fact women fail more often (therefore, a group of 1000 suicidal men and 1000 suicidal women will create many more attempts in the second group), and I think we begin to see the trend.

It boils down to a lot of behaviour which when done by men in the methods many men use elicit the response "What a fucking asshole" rather than the female equivalent, "What's gotten into her?". When the actions become easier to judge than to question and try to understand, we lose a lot of knowledge in the process - see e.g american school shootings.

focusinertia · 2013-07-27T01:59:21+00:00

It's interesting how males are far more likely to commit suicide, even though women admit to having suicidal thoughts just as often. But this isn't very difficult to explain.

For most women, suicide attempt is more of a cry for help. They want people to realize they're in a very depressed state. They can get help from their friends and family more easily and openly because we have conditioned society to treat women's problems with a high degree of importance. For women, attempting suicide is the ultimate way of showing that you need help.

But it's different for men. Society doesn't have the mindset that men deserve to be helped - men are supposed to fix their own problems, no matter how severe they are, just because they're men. That's how it works. When a man attempts suicide, he truly wants his life to be over. Because there is no one who would help him get out of depression.

TracyMorganFreeman · 2013-07-27T04:26:39+00:00

Yes it is quite misleading to include ideation among attempts. That doesn't mean women don't attempt more, but it certainly helps inflate numbers.

notheanix · 2013-07-27T04:19:48+00:00

Thanks for posting this sonja_newcomb, it looks like a good read.

Offensive_Brute · 2013-07-27T04:25:10+00:00

Suicide is messed up no matter the gender.

mikesteane · 2013-07-27T07:30:49+00:00

"Attempted" suicide may be a form of female manipulative behaviour. How difficult can it be to succeed?

rightsbot · 2013-07-26T23:56:16+00:00

Post text automatically copied here. (Why?) (Report a problem.)

3rg0s4m · 2013-07-27T15:00:47+00:00

At least Australia gets it. That being said, the website does make assumptions about men being emotionally closed off and inherently violent that are not cool, but their intentions are good. They have a pretty good info graphic on male suicide.

Offensive_Brute · 2013-07-27T13:25:01+00:00

If more women attempt suicide than men, and men succeed 4x as often as women, women are awful at killing themselves. I think women might "attempt" more often without the actual intent. That is to say that they do it as an act of high drama, for pitty and attention, rather than as a legitimate attempt to end their life.

notheanix · 2013-07-27T01:12:07+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Title	"Women attempt suicide more than men"... no, they don't, sayeth the CDC
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	177
Comments	50
Date	July 26, 2013 11:54 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1j4qd5/women_attempt_suicide_more_than_men_no_they_dont/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/women-attempt-suicide-more-than-men-no-they-dont.1167834 https://theredarchive.com/post/1167834

Comments