Men who adhere to traditional gender roles or masculine ideologies face more than double the risk of suicide | Swiss National Science Foundation

RoryTate · 2024-12-02T17:05:35+00:00

The first sentence of the actual study is enough to be highly skeptical of any conclusions it reaches:

Using data from an anonymous online survey of 488 cisgender men...

Seriously? Less than 500 anonymous respondents to a survey? If the participants are anonymous, then how was their sex confirmed? The study gives no indication of any follow-up or rigour in this process. All it says is:

Data for this study was obtained through an anonymous online survey called Andromind Selbsttest (“Andromind self-test”; AST) that was part of a larger research project for men's mental health at the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the University of Zurich. The majority of participants were recruited through social media advertisements that were geo-restricted to the German-speaking parts of Europe.

This is extremely lazy regarding the lack of any attempts to verify participant's actual sex, and furthermore it is a suspiciously small sample set considering that it was advertised on social media. The only reference to a follow-up was in the following:

Out of the 1210 participants recruited for this study, a total of 697 participants were excluded due to one of the following reasons: missing consent or privacy agreement, insufficient German language skills, being part of the follow-up, not self-identifying as a cisgender man, being under 18 years old, or missing data in any of the questionnaires needed for the present study.

Hidden within this blurb is the revelation that the sex of the participants is done only through "self-identification", which is not reliable enough for a study of this kind.

The study then makes the claim that:

At the same time, men are less likely to disclose suicidal thoughts to health care professionals.

This claim fundamentally contradicts the findings of a much larger 2021 UK study of 1500 middle-aged men who committed suicide:

Rates of contact with services among middle-aged men were higher than expected; almost all had been in contact with a front-line service or agency at some time. It is therefore too simplistic to say that men do not seek help.

That much larger study – which also verified the sex of those it studied through medical information of the deceased – found that 91% of men who had committed suicide did seek help, often days before they tragically took their own life.

This Swiss study, however, ultimately forms its conclusions based on data from just over a hundred anonymous responses, which is a frankly ludicrous sample size to even use in the first place:

Three latent CMN subgroups were identified: Egalitarians (58.6 %; characterized by overall low CMN), Players (16.0 %; characterized by patriarchal beliefs, endorsement of sexual promiscuity, and heterosexual self-presentation), and Stoics (25.4 %; characterized by restrictive emotionality, self-reliance, and engagement in risky behavior). Stoics showed a 2.32 times higher risk for a lifetime suicide attempt, younger age, stronger somatization of depression symptoms, and stronger unbearability beliefs.

"Restrictive emotionality" = "Men are broken women". Yeah. And that's pretty much all you need to know about this study's activist bent. There's not really any point in wasting further time pointing out the flaws in this, given the broken axioms upon which it is built.

Now it's only a single anecdote, but I think most people are probably familiar with one man who fully bought into this "men just need to open up more" urban myth about male mental health. His name was Chris Cornell. Yep, he's the poster child for this supposed "cure" for suicide. He spoke publicly about how this questionable therapy had cured his depression, and solved all his relationship and personal problems. Yet, only a few years later he was found dead by his own hand.

Look, we know what the highest risk factors for suicide are already. From memory, they are unemployment (around a 10x-20x increase IIRC), divorce (5-10x), and legal problems (5-15x). Even if we take this 2.3x multiplier at face value, any effort into solutions for it are a drop in the bucket in comparison to helping men find employment, or reconnecting them with estranged children, or other practical solutions that are staring us in the face. And we seriously need to stop creating new laws that target men for being "rude", and pretending that constitutes criminal behaviour, which is happening all around the world, because that just leads to more legal and financial issues for lower income males, which increases the number that will later commit suicide.

63daddy · 2024-12-02T16:51:21+00:00

The issue I see is the researchers seem to think men can and do simply pick these categories. If for example a man’s wife refuses to go back to work when the kids reach school age and he finds himself having to support a family on a limited budget, he’s probably considered a traditional, masculine man in their study, but it’s not by his choice, it’s because his wife refuses to work. Similarly, most men can’t just decide to be a player, that takes wealth, freedom, certain social skills and perhaps physical attractiveness.

The way they refer to “players” as patriarchal makes me think the researchers have a bias.

The article doesn’t really say much about the methodology of how these groups were divided, but I sense a possible bias to push what they call egalitarian attributes. I sense this may be as much agenda driven as sound research. (And again, men can’t just choose to have egalitarian relationships, because that would require wives wanting to work and earn as much as their husbands which isn’t reality and is why we have a gender earnings gap).

It reminds me a bit of that popular lonely male article that suggested men should date down and marry down even more to prevent loneliness.

Sintar07 · 2024-12-02T18:11:15+00:00

I'm genuinely glad others have the patience to read the study and find exactly how it's biased and obviously incorrect, but I knew it from the headline alone. I swear the fake science is starting to have almost an aura of unreality about it that one can just sense.

FineDingo3542 · 2024-12-02T17:07:29+00:00

This study was done with bias and is complete bullshit.

iainmf · 2024-12-03T00:20:27+00:00

This study uses the Conformity to Masculine Norms Index, which focuses on negative traits. So it is no surprise that men who score highly on a a scale of mostly negative traits have negative outcomes.

anonybro101 · 2024-12-02T16:38:43+00:00

So what do people want? Men to be traditional? Or men to become bitches? Make up your minds please lol.

Capable-Mushroom99 · 2024-12-03T07:59:49+00:00

It’s a garbage study. And obviously nobody committed suicide because they had to be living to complete the survey 😂😂😂

rabel111 · 2024-12-02T22:00:37+00:00

Violence and suicide are not traditional masculine norms.

Chispy · 2024-12-02T16:09:17+00:00

Found this article on r/science through this post.

Yousaidyoudfighforme · 2024-12-04T07:17:14+00:00

I noticed most “research” in regards to men is so far from reality it’s funny

Themightysavage · 2024-12-02T17:17:16+00:00

No we don't, quitting is for sissies and girls.

Title	Men who adhere to traditional gender roles or masculine ideologies face more than double the risk of suicide \| Swiss National Science Foundation
Author	Chispy
Upvotes	173
Comments	29
Date	December 2, 2024 4:08 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1h4ygbk/men_who_adhere_to_traditional_gender_roles_or/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/men-who-adhere-to-traditional-gender-roles-or.1537353 https://theredarchive.com/post/1537353

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