BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Head Shop >

Gender and Suicide

  
  

Page: (1)2

 
 
Bill Posters
13:50 / 01.02.02
The Genderfuck thread features this exchange during the apologies-all-round-phase of one of the Head Shop's regular 'kick Bill in the pods' moments:

Bill Posters: ...if I'd really wanted trouble, I would have mentioned that the male suicide rate in the UK is four times the female suicide rate, wouldn't I?

alas: re: suicide rate. I think weird things are happening regarding gender right now... -- although I cringe at the potential implications of what I'm about to say, sometimes we (and i include myself) can seem to be more about establishing some kind of hierarchy of victimization than exploring the ways that the current gender constructions create peculiar constraints ON EVERYONE, including those who occupy privileged positions.

...[R]ather than looking at white male suicide under the implicit rubric of "see they're victimized" I'd like to explore the following question: does the way our culture currently construct masculinity create a context where it is more "masculine" to see suicide as a viable solution to problems--more viable than, oh, say, seeking out a therapist, or sharing your problems with your friends?

Because alas is busy booking our tickets to Mallorca (we're off on a Club 18-30 Holiday to meet like-minded folk ), I've taken the liberty of starting this thread myself. What do we reckon then?
 
 
Re-Set
14:26 / 01.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Bill Posters:
[QB]
Bill Posters: ...if I'd really wanted trouble, I would have mentioned that the male suicide rate in the UK is four times the female suicide rate, wouldn't I?

QB]


Maybe I'm making my pods available for the kicking, but my understanding of suicide by gender is this.
Females attempt much more frequently than males; males succeed many times more often than females. Reason being males have a tendency to drive themselves off cliffs, pour water in a shotgun barrel and insert in mouth, very violent and often painful manners, but certain. Females on average combine liquor and pills, slice veins ('member kids, along the wrist, not across) and other less, well, disfiguring means of taking one's life. Just a little fuel for the fire, but I am speaking only statistically.
Suicide, ultimate escape from inescapable suffering, or cry for help, fixed in a way the help arrives too late? I dunno, it's not in my programming.
 
 
passer
15:01 / 01.02.02
My apologies, a double post.

[ 01-02-2002: Message edited by: passer ]
 
 
passer
15:02 / 01.02.02
Here are some stats haphazardly garnered off the web:

World health organization's suicide rates information in convenient graph formhere.
More numbers here.
"Gender differences in risk factors of suicide in Denmark", from the British Journal of Psychiatry.

I'm not willing to say that suicide is more masculine. To nit pick, I am willing to agree that current gender roles make a successful suicide more likely for males. Society encourages males to be more violent and violent methods for suicide have a higher mortality rate. I actually like a another point made here about patterns of support as well.
quote: a paper which was read at the Suicide conference by Jim Harrison pointed out that in the last 20 years, the suicide trend-rate for males has been diverging up and away from the female trend. The people at my interactive session suggested some reasons why women don't commit suicide as "successfully" as men, are that women; are more likely to have the hope of support from someone to talk to in a crisis; share problems more with other women, which leads to more sharing and support; are more information sharers, whereas (some) men use or withhold information for reasons of control.

I think it was Dale Spender who pointed out that women have developed these patterns of support and survival in order to live within the sociopolitical domination of patriarchal society. It is also clear that, for the same reason, gay men have had to develop similar strategies.


Floats, I take issue with the idea that women choose less disfiguring methods. I think it's the issue of violence and rashness rather than vanity that's the key here.

[ 01-02-2002: Message edited by: passer ]

[ 01-02-2002: Message edited by: passer ]
 
 
Re-Set
15:15 / 01.02.02
Passer, it was a poor choice of words on my part, and I apologize if I offended. However, I was referring more to the end result rather than the motivation.
 
 
Ganesh
17:16 / 01.02.02
There's also the rather slippery question of what constitutes an "attempted suicide". Women certainly overdose much more than men, but not every overdose is taken with the unambiguous aim of killing oneself - in fact, I'd estimate that at least 90% fall into the rather cliched "cry for help" category. It's a function of our society, however, that women are much more easily "trapped" into seemingly dead-end situations (by physical intimidation, by pregnancy, by poverty, by general lack of prospects/opportunities) and have fewer options for extricating themselves.

Men, when they choose the suicide option, are (relatively speaking) less equivocal. Being simplistic, they're statistically more likely to "mean it"...
 
 
passer
17:34 / 01.02.02
What about the issue of access? To take two examples: guns and cars. Typically considered male territory which could be considered as a limitation to access to successful methods.

I would think that this muddies the water of intention vs. cry for help.
 
 
Ganesh
09:36 / 02.02.02
In this country (the UK), not to any hugely significant degree. Firearm suicides and asphyxiation are comparitively rare. Most common means of suicide other than poisoning is hanging.

"Attempted suicide" is an odd thing. The vast majority are hugely ambivalent (as evidenced by the fact that they not atypically take the overdose then immediately telephone an ambulance or walk into Accident & Emergency, all the while maintaining that they definitely want to die). It's very much a grey area where people's actions are often completely at odds with their stated intent. They may or may not have consciously planned a "cry for help" episode but unconsciously, it appears that the greater majority contrive to be "pulled back from the brink" one way or another...

[ 02-02-2002: Message edited by: Ganesh v4.2 ]
 
 
Spatula Clarke
09:36 / 02.02.02
Can anyone provide any info about gender-specific suicide rates over a course of time longer than ten years? The graphs that you link to, passer, are very limited in this regard.

I'm wondering if the distribution of suicides stayed roughly the same throughout the last couple of centuries, or if the 'male's more likely to than females' figures are only relevant to more recent years.
 
 
passer
09:36 / 02.02.02
To beat a dying horse ('cause I'm sick like that), the ability to reconsider after you've acted is dependent on the methodology. Once you're jumped/pulled the trigger there isn't enough time to say you know what, I've changed my mind and do anything about it.

The key factor isn't a judgment of intent, but the methodolgy chosen. A choice affected by gender as it's currently indoctrinated.

Of course, this leads me to wonder what the rates are for unreported suicide attempts. I would think that males would have a higher percentage of unreported suicide attempts lest anyone accuse them of being indecisive which I'm told is a big no-no for manly men.

E. Randy Deep Joy- I haven't been able to find much info, but I wouldn't think there would be. The obsession with accurate numbers for the sake of study is a new one. In addition to this, the distinct stigma attached to suicide in Christian culture (I can't really speak about many others, sorry) would further obscure any numbers that might be out there. I will keep looking though.
 
 
Ganesh
09:36 / 02.02.02
Well yeah, self-poisoning leaves the largest window for changing one's mind - but I'd argue that that's exactly why it's chosen by a greater number of women (who, after all, have just as much access to rope, blades, high places, traffic and electricity) than men. I think the intent (which, as I say, can be a curious mix of conscious and unconscious motive) determines the method rather than the other way around.

In calculating the suicide rate, a certain proportion of "unexplained deaths" are factored into the final figure. And yeah, the male rate for completed suicide has always been higher, even when we lacked the technology for quick, easy resuscitation. The longest-running suicide records are in Oxford and Edinburgh, where a lot of the research originates. I've got it all written down somewhere; I'll try to dig it out.
 
 
w1rebaby
15:46 / 02.02.02
Here's a theory: The more "active" suicide methods chosen by men (violent or maybe even involving the deaths of others) may reflect an attempt to regain "control" over their lives and avoid passivity - something which the masculine gender construct emphasises as a necessity. In a similar way to how men who feel powerless may abuse what power they have, in domestic violence etc.

(This would link into the point above that women have historically always been more in a position of powerlessness, so the gender construct has partially evolved to cope with it. Powerlessness is depressing regardless of gender, but more support networks exist to deal with it for women, and the construct does not put so much pressure on them to "solve" the situation.)
 
 
pantone 292
17:25 / 02.02.02
The Art of Suicide by Ron Brown
dont know what its like, but I used to work with him, dead nice...
 
 
Shortfatdyke
04:32 / 03.02.02
w1rebaby - that seems to make most sense to me.

for the record, i have a very long list of women i have known/close friends of friends who have committed suicide, including violent methods such as hanging and jumping off buildings, but i have known no men who have killed themselves. i've tried it myself: taken an overdose and just not given a fuck as to whether or not i lived through it, and tried to jump off archway bridge. the mental health profession treated me as if i was simply having a hissy fit.
 
 
Ganesh
10:53 / 03.02.02
Assessing people post-suicide attempt is a pretty thankless task; no matter how it's approached, the "mental health profession" can't really win. People tend to express considerable anger at having been "prevented" from suicide - even if they've taken ten paracetamol in front of their family, then called an ambulance themselves. Alternatively, they get pissed off because you a) want to admit them to a psychiatric ward, or b) don't want to admit them to a psychiatric ward. One way or another, hardly anyone's actually pleased to see a psychiatrist.

In Edinburgh, there's an A&E policy that anyone who's brought in having attempted to kill themselves (no matter how ambivalent and 'staged' their attempt may appear) is admitted to a certain ward where they're monitored overnight and assessed in the morning, by medical and psychiatric teams. The policy of overnight admission does allow a certain 'cooling off' period which means people are a little more willing to talk to doctors; even so, it's difficult to shake the feeling, sometimes, that you're a welcome/unwelcome bit part player in other people's psychodramas - the authority figure onto whom one can freely project maternal (looking after your physical health, "are you alright", etc.) and paternal (the power to restrict your personal freedom via Mental Health Act) transferences - but who still can't get their lines right.

W1rebaby: the idea of "taking control" is, I think, central to male suicides - and also, in an odd way, to female suicides. It's just that society allows so few 'acceptable' ways in which women can regain control over their lives that overdosing - a fairly miserable, double-edged act at the best of times - represents a valid way of saying "look, I have power over something"...

[ 03-02-2002: Message edited by: Ganesh v4.2 ]
 
 
Bill Posters
16:12 / 04.02.02
I'm short of time but briefly, not sure I understand/agree with this control idea. I mean, surely a violent suicide which is comprised by a 'definitively' self-destructive action is indicative of a state, subjective or objective, of total lack of control? An absolute lack of options? And how is death anything other than the ultimately passive (and therefore unmanly) state? Conversely, a 'communicative' suicide, comprised by an 'ambiguously' autodestructive act, could surely be extremely controlling vis-a-vis other individuals involved?

On the personal side, I've never tried it though I must admit there have been times when I've thought about it. (Not, I'm glad to say, at all recently.) The only two people I know, both male, to have tried it both did the self-poisoning thing of going for that o/d 'cry-for-help'. In one instance the guy actually said to his ex-partner afterwards that he "didn't feel that she had cried enough" when she visited him in hospital.(!) Um, don't these more communicative acts sometimes get called 'parasuicides' or 'pseudocides'?

The sources I've read (I'll try to get 'em) claim that the male suicide rate is generally (cross-culturally) 2x the female rate, the rise in the male rate is a relatively recent and culturally-specific thing. (And that stat, valid or otherwise, is one which can obviously be deployed in a very antifeminist way.) I'm not sure how much credence I even have for suicide rates though, and I'll back that up when I've had time to do some checks on the 'damned lies' school of (so-called) suicide stats...

[ 04-02-2002: Message edited by: Bill Posters ]
 
 
Ganesh
16:24 / 04.02.02
Briefly checked up on the suicide rate. In general yes, males outnumber females by around two to one. This holds true for all countries in which the suicide rates are measured - and, interestingly, in developing countries, there's a suggestion that the female rate is gradually rising to meet the male one.

Suicide rates are actually one of the more reliable health statistics - although there's the perennial suspicion (on the part of psychiatrists, anyway) that they're an underestimation. Coroners generally include a certain proportion of 'unexplained' deaths on the grounds that the balance of probabilities suggests suicide.

There's always been a degree of confusion over what to call the vast majority of overdosers. Strictly speaking, a "suicide" is a completed act (ie. they're dead) and "attempted suicide" is fading out of usage because it makes implications about intent. "Parasuicide" is the preferred term; it means an individual who's intentionally harmed themself by taking a proportion of substance they believed to be dangerous.

You're right, Bill, that some overdoses represent fairly cynical attempts to manipulate friends, family, etc. - but I don't think these are in the majority. Conversely, although a completed suicide may look, from the outside, like the ultimate surrender of control, it's actually quite difficult to kill oneself - so anything but "passive"...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:16 / 04.02.02
Not wishing to speak out of turn, and fully aware that I am speaking as a concerned bystander rather than an informed participant:

Mightn't a person who chooses to shoot themselves or use some other "violent" means to take their own life be acting out a violent impulse towards the people around them? As opposed to the person who O.D.'s, who may belive that they will simply "go to sleep", thereby (they suppose) reducing the distress they cause?

Also, having been around both parasuicide survivours and those close to people who've "completed" their suicide (sorry, that's clumsy as hell, but I don't know how else to put it), I've got the impression that overdosing may, in some cases, allow the suicidal individual to conceal the act from themselves to some extent.

I don't want to fall into the trap of suggesting that men are inherantly more violent than women, because I happen not to belive this. However, I would suggest that women tend to turn anger inwards rather than outwards; in the case of suicide this might possibly manifest itself in the use of O.D.ing as a damage-limitation exercize, whereas a supposedly more violent suicide might reflect a "masculine" tendency toward violence being turned outward- even though it is the self who suffers and dies, the suffering is passed on to others. This might help in some small way to explain the gender disparity, as overdosing is more survivable than some other means.

I'd hasten to add in closing that I'm no psychologist, and that I would not suggest that one suicide is kinder than another; even if the people who care about you aren't cleaning up your physical remains, they'll be dealing with your psychic debris forever. Nor does one form indicate more or less emotional pain on the part of the suicidal person than another. Nobody abandons their life just for effect. I get very angry when I hear this suggested as a motivation for suicide.
 
 
Sleeperservice
17:16 / 04.02.02
quote: it's actually quite difficult to kill oneself

/me smiles wryly

I suppose the social definitions or pressures of gender do play some role in the variations in suicide rate but I think it has more to do with the wider issue of male violence in general. Men are simply more violent and so use more violent methods to kill themselves.

So given that, it seems, men have always been the more violent sex perhaps this shouldn't be so surprising.

Sleeper
 
 
Sleeperservice
17:36 / 04.02.02
quote: Mordant C@rnival wrote

"I don't want to fall into the trap of suggesting that men are inherantly more violent than women, because I happen not to belive this"



Why not? Since earliest recorded history men have been more violent. In fact I can't think of a society where this wasn't true. Although I'd love to stand corrected.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:52 / 04.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Sleeperservice:
Why not? Since earliest recorded history men have been more violent. In fact I can't think of a society where this wasn't true. Although I'd love to stand corrected.

Okayyyy... flagrantly off-topic here, but my personal theory goes something like this:

#1 In general, men are physically bigger and stronger than women.

#2 This has meant that in most violent confrontations between a man and a woman, the man will win.

#3 Over the millenia, this relationship, based purely on physical discrepancy, has been codified into a social norm. Men are raised from infancy to favour pysically violent impulses or to favour some ritualized expression of said impulses. Women are raised from infancy to repress and conceal physically violent impulses, and further to regard these impulses as a threat to their femininity.

This means that, yeah, men will tend to be more physically violent than women. IMHO, this is more to do with opportunity than predisposition, more nurture than nature.

Just a theory. I belive that little boys are born loving, not hating.
 
 
Sleeperservice
18:29 / 04.02.02
I don't think it is OT. My point being that higher male suicide rates stem from higher male violence rates.

If violence were a product of nurture you would expect to find societies where men were not more violent than women. Even if they were few, isolated and had been wiped out by now they should have still existed. I know of none.

A time machine would be great you could go back & see how people lived rather than relying on 100th hand information... I tend to think, however, that we've always been violent simply because it aided our survival.

I also think that boys are born loving, not hating. I just also think they are generally more violent.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:42 / 04.02.02
Sleeperservice: You're so cool I could stand a six-pack on you and call you a fridge.

Hie thee to a new thread on violence. I'll start one, if someone hasn't got there first.
 
 
passer
19:20 / 04.02.02
Info on methodology by gender (USA) here.

More info on methodology by gender (Canada)
here.

I find it very interesting indeed that the gender differences are smaller in the New Brunswick sample than in the US, but my statistical skills aren't good enough to figure out whether this is a function of sample size or culture. The predominance of female suicide by poisoning remains in both, however.
 
 
fishbiscuits
19:27 / 04.02.02
I'm trying to follow this, and I have a feeling I may be well out of my depth, but still

quote:Originally posted by Ganesh v4.2:
not every overdose is taken with the unambiguous aim of killing oneself - in fact, I'd estimate that at least 90% fall into the rather cliched "cry for help" category.

I'm quite interested as to whether your estimate takes in to account overdoses which are not fatal and where the individual does not go to hospital or see a doctor. How rare do you think that would be??? (I realise it's hard to tell)
 
 
Ganesh
10:22 / 05.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Mordant C@rnival:
Nobody abandons their life just for effect. I get very angry when I hear this suggested as a motivation for suicide.

Sure, I agree. There seems to be a generally accepted cultural belief, however, that every parasuicide is a "failed" suicide and this is not the case. People self-poison for a wide, wide range of reasons - and unequivocally wanting to die is surprisingly far down the list.
 
 
Ganesh
10:26 / 05.02.02
quote:Originally posted by fishbiscuits:
I'm quite interested as to whether your estimate takes in to account overdoses which are not fatal and where the individual does not go to hospital or see a doctor. How rare do you think that would be??? (I realise it's hard to tell)

If the non-fatal overdose isn't brought to the attention of anyone else, it's impossible to tell. I've absolutely no idea how rare it would or wouldn't be.
 
 
The Planet of Sound
10:38 / 05.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Sleeperservice:
[QB]
If violence were a product of nurture you would expect to find societies where men were not more violent than women. Even if they were few, isolated and had been wiped out by now they should have still existed. I know of none.

QB]

The words 'amazon' and 'bacchae' come to mind. Female violence ('girl-gangs') is currently on the increase, certainly in London (recent police-cam TV documentaries). Something in the water or that old nurture gone crazee thing?
 
 
fishbiscuits
12:10 / 05.02.02
I just wondered if it happened that someone who later on made another attempt or was being seen by a doctor for depression mkight say they had already tried.
If you failed and it wasn't a "cry for help", it would be fairly easy to hide an overdose, wouldn't it? So might you be more likely to see the "crys for help" than the genuine suicide attempts???
 
 
fishbiscuits
12:11 / 05.02.02
I apologise if I'm asking stupid questions
 
 
Shortfatdyke
12:25 / 05.02.02
not stupid questions at all. i have taken ods that made me puke my guts up without me ever having been seen by any medical types.

i was under the impression that oding made you slip away. someone who's in incredible emotional pain can surely want life to end quietly and painlessly? i thought that's why people did the overdose thing, not realising that the human body can be extremely tough and hard to kill.
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
13:30 / 05.02.02
quote:Originally posted by The Planet of Sound:


The words 'amazon' and 'bacchae' come to mind.

You do realise they didn't exist? That they were creations of masculine anxiety? And as such perfectly relevant to the discussion, but in a very different way?
 
 
The Natural Way
13:43 / 05.02.02
Heeey, Haus, you got there first.....
 
 
Ganesh
15:25 / 05.02.02
quote:Originally posted by shortfatdyke:
i was under the impression that oding made you slip away. someone who's in incredible emotional pain can surely want life to end quietly and painlessly? i thought that's why people did the overdose thing, not realising that the human body can be extremely tough and hard to kill.

As I say, people overdose for all manner of reasons. "Wanting away from everything" - oblivion - is a commoner reason than the more specific "I wanted to die", sure.

I know there are people who overdose, don't tell anyone and don't die; it's just that it's a nigh-impossible thing to study (all you'd have to go on would be their say-so after the event - and that's hardly the most reliable research base). So yeah, maybe they are as common as the more readily-identifiable "cry for help" variety and it is just that the latter are more prominent. Your guess is as good as mine.

It's an area where stated intent has to be reconciled, somehow, with the overdoser's actions. I was frequently amazed at the levels of vehement denial of ambivalence in those I assessed: they'd commonly express anger and resentment at partners, family and medical profession for "foiling" their suicide attempt and get shirty with me when I'd ask how, exactly, they ended up in Accident & Emergency. Typically, they'd have called the ambulance themselves or walked in the front door "to check that I'd taken enough to kill myself".

Most bizarre of all were the multiple overdosers, who'd pitch up every other weekend with the same weary partner who'd "walked in and caught me in the nick of time" - again. Even more frustrating were those who would discharge themselves, walk across the road, buy paracetamol, down it in one and walk straight back into A&E to start the whole "leave me alone, I just want to die" routine again.

And yeah, they did need sympathy and psychiatric help at least some of the time - but it's a two-way process. These extreme variants were, more often than not, stuck in their own black pantomimes, unable/unwilling to look at other ways of coping with their lives. Depressing.

Regularly faced with the odder, more self-destructive vagaries of human behaviour, it's no great wonder that liaison psychiatrists become more cynical than most where suicide is concerned. On a particularly bad day, it can feel like you're playing cavalry/confessor/oppressor in a succession of bad melo(psycho)dramas...

[ 05-02-2002: Message edited by: Ganesh v4.2 ]
 
 
fishbiscuits
17:20 / 05.02.02
quote:Originally posted by shortfatdyke:
not stupid questions at all. i have taken ods that made me puke my guts up without me ever having been seen by any medical types.

i was under the impression that oding made you slip away. someone who's in incredible emotional pain can surely want life to end quietly and painlessly? i thought that's why people did the overdose thing, not realising that the human body can be extremely tough and hard to kill.

Thanks SFD, I also have taken an overdose and not told anyone (at least at the time, I'm not so bothered about telling people now). I guess that was why I brought it up...
 
  

Page: (1)2

 
  
Add Your Reply