<To begin to understand suicide in men we need to acknowledge the psychobiological and cultural realities and demands on men’s lives, as described by Ashfield (2010).

The practice of blaming men for ‘holding in their emotions’ and ‘not seeking help’, and calls for changes to the traditional male role, sounds plausible but is, at best, lazy and simplistic. It is a view that conveniently avoids dealing with the more complex issues of male suicide, and is one that is ignorant of biology, and offensively dismissive of the lived reality of most men’s lives – what society expects of them, and what they must try to be to meet these expectations.

Let us act on what we know with compassion, respect and hope and continue to build the knowledge base to address the huge gender disparity in suicide.>

from 'Insights into Men's Suicide'
Australian Psychological Society Aug 2012

Thanks for that, Lexi. While I was mostly being rhetorical, I am interested to see if there is any social credit applied to masculine stereotypes or maleness as a defining property.

I suspect that your response is a fair one and reflects the fact that the qualities which were valued in a life partner and which defined men as inherently socially valuable are atavistic in the current social structure. The physical features you mentioned have diminished to mere sexual signals, instead of an indication of physical prowess valuable for what it could make possible. Even sperm will become inessential as research into conception using two ova proceeds.

onthebeach, thanks for that, it supports my view that this is not a genuine effort to address the male suicide problem.

Well well, I'm listening to this podcast as I type, Dean Esmay, Erin Pizzey, Christina Hansen and Tom Golden discuss Men's issues and take calls, I believe they cover most of what this thread alludes to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poCsP3g9Ob8

It is a serious decision based on hopelessness and we are all responsible.
Arjay,
Spot-on, much of such hopelessness was created by the Rudd/Gillard team & in Qld by Goss/Beatty/Bligh. The sad part is that they wouldn't have been able to do it without the help of 51% of the electorate. Sad indictment indeed !

Yes I have 2 men in my life who suffer from depression,
Suseonline,
Why don't you do something about changing your mentality then ? You'd be surprised how quickly they'll recover.

Lexi the system restrained people of both genders especially if you were not at the top of the pile.

I don't know how far back you have to go in our culture to get a situation of genuine privilige for most men and I'm really over seeing that assertion tossed around especially without qualifiers.

It seems to contribute to the overall sense of it does not matter much to what you do to me today because they have been priviliged in past.

Pelican once I got CSA off my back it was largely problem solved. It was a practical issue of an agenda driven government program which does not have any concept of fair treatment rather than primarily a mental health issue.

Some other bits in the mix added to the stress but for the most part I have options with them by working around the problem, just realities of life - a less secure eployment situation than I had and too many stories of older workers finding it very difficult to get work added to my concern over what was done to me.

Despite the widespread angst amongst men at the gendered implementation of family law and CS there never seems to be any willingness to investigate the impacts of those systems on male health and suicide rates. It seems to be an issue no-one with the resources to do so wants to touch.

R0bert