Women commit more suicide attempts. Do they?

womblefish · 2014-07-05T10:40:36+00:00

Yes, more women "attempt suicide" however substantially more men actually die from suicide.

I used quotes around the term "attempt suicide" because I've seen numerous young women "attempt suicide". One walked into a room full of friends with an empty paracetamol packet, claiming she had just swallowed ten paracetamol pills, "and now I'm going to die".. It was clearly attention seeking behaviour rather than a genuine attempt to kill herself, but never the less, an an ambulance was called, she was taken to hospital and put under observation, and it would have been officially listed as an "attempted suicide". In a similar event a young woman inflicted superficial cuts on her upper forearms then proceeded to tell all her friends about it, likewise an ambulance was called when a band-aid would've worked just as well.

Every man I've ever known that has committed, or attempted to commit suicide, did it somewhere quiet, and didn't tell anyone what they were doing.

Often the statistic that 3 times more women attempt suicide is cited as if it somehow proves that women are more at risk of suicide.

However, completing a suicide is something you can only do once. On the other hand "attempting suicide" is something that can be done multiple times. But the statistics don't count "individuals who have attempted suicide", they only count "suicide attempts". The point being that one person can "attempt suicide" dozens of times during their lifetime skewing the overall statistics for a group.

To my knowledge there's no solid research into the topic, but I suspect it's highly likely that a small number of women, each "attempting suicide" multiple times artificially inflate the number of suicide attempts for women.

People who cite the "3 times more suicide attempts" statistic are trying to prove that there are more troubled women than men ("3 times more") to justify more support measures aimed at women. However, without any detail or context, showing whether these are 1st attempts, or 10th attempts, the statistic is pretty much worthless.

TL/DR: Counting "suicide attempts" is pretty much a useless statistic for estimating the total number of troubled individuals in a group.

SirSkeptic · 2014-07-05T09:48:56+00:00

Yes and no.

Many of the attempts are not genuine. Like taking a mild overdose of sleeping tables when she hears her parents coming up the driveway. It's counted as a suicide attempt but there's no depression nor any desire to die. It's typically a cry for attention.

On the other hand many young men who die in single car collisions with trees who have a history of depression don't get counted as suicides, they get marked down as motor vehicle accidents.

I don't have hard numbers on it, but my mother was a clinical psychologist working with depressed and suicidal patients. I got my data from listening to her and her colleagues. It seems that the official data is being skewed for some reason.

edit: speling & punktooashun

rapiertwit · 2014-07-05T10:52:51+00:00

I can't remember which book, but I saw it posited that the methods men use help conceal both real and attempted suicides. The most important one was intentional car wrecks. Sometimes with alcohol, sometimes sober. There was enough evidence (self-reporting from failed attampts, and most importantly studies that asked people, "if you were going to commit suicide how would you do it?") to suggest there could be a much larger number of suicides-by-car that went unnoticed as such, and that they would mostly be men. Even if the attempt didn't work the men would be unlikely to report it as anything other than an accident, because in many cases that's the whole point - car suicide is the most accessible way to kill yourself and make it look like an accident, and so not jeopardize your family's life insurance claim.

wayneywonda · 2014-07-05T09:41:33+00:00

In the UK, suicide is more common in men. This has been recognised and there are specialist services being created to try and help, such as Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM).

Gittiup · 2014-07-05T13:09:25+00:00

Yes, I believe that's accurate. But if this used as a counter argument to men kill themselves 4x more than women do. I don't understand why attempted suicide and surviving it is a worst state than actually you know dying from suicide. Which is basically what they are trying to say.

Bla34112 · 2014-07-05T15:50:11+00:00

Lets have a men and women of the same weight. Both of them drink bottle of whiskey just bellow lethal dose. Now my assumption is that men would be treated as 'alcoholic' and mocked for hangover. Women on other side would be treated as 'suicide survivor' and got all help she needs to recover.

Don't make assumptions like that without following up on it...

2014-07-05T18:04:38+00:00

Is a man who puts a gun in his mouth, but eventually doesn't pull the trigger has attempted suicide? A man stands at the top of a building or a bridge, but doesn't jump...was that an attempted suicide? By the reports no, but in my opinion, that's an attempt. They only count as attempts if they survive the wounds of the attempt.

Following this logic, men do attempt it more often than women, but they are not reported.

If you see this coming up, that women attempt it more, please bring up the bridge and gun examples. Using "women attempt it more" as an answer to "men commit suicide more often" is a disgusting argument that feeds on the empathy gap.

WodensEye · 2014-07-05T15:17:35+00:00

I've gone into where the numbers for suicide attempts are drawn from before:

http://eyeofwoden.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/debunking-suicides-an-addendum/

chocoboat · 2014-07-06T02:01:49+00:00

Women are more likely to attempt suicide in an act that's more of a call for help than a serious attempt to die.

Men are more likely to actually end their own lives.

It's important to remember that this issue is not a competition over who has it worse.

MRSPArchiver · 2014-07-05T09:35:39+00:00

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Poperiarchy · 2014-07-05T09:44:51+00:00

Without research my understanding is that females do make more suicide attempts but they are much more of a cry for help. They are spectacularly bad at committing suicide. Men on the other hand if they intend to take their lives do it in a way which will almost certainly result in death.

Nomenimion · 2014-07-05T19:26:43+00:00

They try more often, but men succeed. Suicide is one more area where women can't compete with men.

Ransom_Stoddard · 2014-07-05T13:42:47+00:00

Not serious suicide attempts. Mostly "attempts" women know they will survive without any lasting negative effects so they can be "victims", have others fawn all over them and they sometimes use it to escape accountability (dont want to do work, complete a project, term paper, get out of something they dont want to do, etc). You see this with attention whores frequently.

EllieDai · 2014-07-05T20:11:40+00:00

Most women who "attempt suicide" are doing it to get attention.

Most men who "attempt suicide" don't, they just commit suicide.

<sup>Basically</sup> summing up most posts here.

Title	Women commit more suicide attempts. Do they?
Author	dopp2
Upvotes	16
Comments	26
Date	July 5, 2014 9:35 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/29w07r/women-commit-more-suicide-attempts-do-they/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/women-commit-more-suicide-attempts-do-they.1619003 https://theredarchive.com/post/1619003

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