There is an article in the Daily Telegraph here about male suicide being a massive health issue in the UK:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/mens-health/11978290/Male-suicide-now-a-national-public-health-emergency-MPs-warned.html

So I just wanted to briefly discuss why I believe this is the case.

I think that a massive part of the problem is simply that there are few valid roles for young men and little context in which they can legitimately express their masculinity.

This is a theme of the movie Fight Club, and the writer of the original novel has spoken of a generational crisis whereby men are not really needed by the wider society as it’s already built. Palahniuk doesn’t fully understand the way that the society works, but it’s still an interesting and informative film and he raises some valid points. Where I would disagree with Fight Club is that what the men do in that film doesn’t improve their lives in the slightest!

I mentioned this in my book...when the UK riots happened (I accept that the extent of this was exaggerated!) the media was all po-faced and gravely discussing 'young people' with no direction, absurdly ignoring the fact that at least 95% of people smashing things up were young men. And I must say that there was a pretty broad racial profile to these young men as well. On one level it was just abjectly stupid behaviour, but I do think there was a 'Fight Club' element to it; it was a wider expression of the extent to which there are no useful or satisfactory roles for a generation of young men.

But not only is it difficult for young men to even understand this - not least because they are usually told the complete opposite by society - but there is no mechanism for them to express how they feel. They can't talk to their family due to social breakdown and the often atomised nature of modern families. They can't talk to other men because we're all taught not to open up. They can't talk to women because, despite the fact that feminism claims the opposite for some bizarre reason, women like strong and resolute men. Some young men see suicide as the only option. They have no escape valve for these feelings, and no role in society that will enable them to feel valued and let out some of their aggression.

I do believe this is because social engineers wish to discourage masculinity generally because it's potentially dangerous to them, unless it can be herded into useful fields such as the military or police.

You can quite easily see this reflected in the Telegraph article:

A “crisis of masculinity” in which many men fail to seek help even when catastrophic events hit their lives is leading to tragic consequences for thousands of families, they said.

It follows research published last week by the charity “Calm” (Campaign Against Living Miserably) showing that more four in 10 men have thought about taking their own lives at some point.

The YouGov survey of more than 2,000 men also found a similar proportion never talk to anyone about their problems – variously because they felt ashamed, did not want to discuss feelings or did not “want to make a fuss”.

“The figures from the poll are shocking and go some way to explain the stubbornly high levels of male suicides in the UK,” said Jane Powell, chief executive of Calm. “This group are hard to reach, they don’t see themselves as victims, but they believe that saying they need help in some way makes look weak or less of a man.

"Simply put, there is a crisis in masculinity, where men feel unable or unwilling to get help even when they are hit by catastrophic life events, bereavement, divorce, job loss or similar"

“And until we can break down those barriers that prevent men accessing the help and support they need, we will struggle to cut the number of deaths.”

I could very easily explain to the parliament right now why this is happening, unfortunately I don't think I'll be required to be part of the debate!

Society is extremely confusing for young men in particular, and they don't have valid socio-economic roles. On the one hand, they're told that it's really important to be successful, and on the other hand it's becoming ever more difficult to be successful economically. On the one hand, they're told to be open with their feelings and that this is the way 'new men' behave, on the other they will quite evidently see that men who behave nothing like this have more success with women and are more attractive to women.

In addition, they will see that quite frequently men who are 'losers' are derided, societally, by other men, and by women (do you live in your parents' basement?, are you a geeky, nerdy Dungeons and Dragons fan?, I bet you're a spotty youth, etc...we've all seen it a million times). In fact, this is the first thing that BPers say about RPers.

But they're not allowed to feel hurt by this, instead they have to 'man up' and accept that this derision is justified and somehow they have to live up to the standards of others.

But then on the other hand, when women face derision, feminists decree that this is the end of the world. But then additionally when men assert that women actually only like successful and masculine men, they're then told that this is wrong, usually by feminists, but then have to watch while women then completely contradict their own statements, including feminists themselves!

And this is before you go into the fact that now all men are apparently potential rapists, so we all have to apparently do something to prevent the spread of 'rape culture' and just stating that you guarantee that you will never rape a woman is not enough!

Meanwhile, you're stuck doing your shitty, emasculating, dead end job (if you're lucky; over 25% of men aged 18-24 in my home town are in neither education or training) that you can't possibly have any investment in, skint, while the TV constantly tells you that everyone should be leading the idealised bourgeois existence, struggling to even leave home let alone start a family, probably in many cases not getting a sniff of female attention, with apparently very little to live for and almost no prospects of things getting better.

And then people are surprised that male suicide is increasing! And when it's raised in parliament, as stated in the Daily Telegraph article:

In a letter to members of the Backbench Business Committee the alliance of charities and experts, led by Calm, urged MPs to help “break down the stigma that prevents too many men from seeking help”. It follows clashes between the Tory MP Philip Davies and Labour’s Jess Phillips after he proposed a debate on men’s issues on International Men’s Day on November 19. She reacted with laughter after he suggested there was “limited” opportunity to discuss men’s issues in Parliament

...this is how seriously it's taken!

Life for many young men is an emotional maelstrom with no release valve, there's no wonder that many commit suicide.

Discuss!