The other day at work a coworker and I were talking about Robin Williams' death. This was before we knew any details except that it was caused by asphyxiation and was most likely a suicide. The coworker then made the observation that "men's suicide attempts always tend to be slow, like suffocating, so they can change their mind before it's over" whereas "women tend to choose more instant methods, like shooting themselves or jumping off buildings" and then used that to explain why more women commit suicide than men.

I'm not an avid reader of this sub, I don't know a whole lot when it comes to gender related issues, but I do remember seeing that suicide rates among men are way higher than those among women. So I asked the coworker about this and the response was "That statistic is for suicide attempts. See, Men will try two or three times whereas women will only take one, that's why the gap is so big."

So, is that true? Is the statistic for gender differences in suicide skewed because of attempts as opposed to actual suicides?