Dougthebear:

Any suicide is a tragedy. However, it is misrepresentative of the issue; unhelpful in terms of assisting people who might be contemplating suicide (and their families); unfair to women; unjust to feminists; untruthful about feminism generally and exploitative of the issue for your particular agenda, to try to draw some sort of association between women, feminism and male suicide.

The fact is that current rates of suicide are no greater than the rates earlier this century. Although there have been fluctuations during the century, upsurges have been closely associated with economic conditions; unemployment; socio-economic status and the like.

Other factors include relationships; mental illness; drug/alcohol dependency; personality and impulsivity; use of very effective means.
In contrast, women attempt more often but succeed less because they more usually use passive means. I think males self harm more than is shown in stats; but women have more presentations at hospital for injuries such as laceration from self harm.

Recognition of and resources, national and state policy dedicated to male suicide mid 1990s:

http://www.publications.health.sa.gov.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=pop

Major trends:

http://www.nisu.flinders.edu.au/pubs/bulletin15/bulletin15sup.html

Complexity:

http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/4/9/0/%7B490EDFD9-212E-414F-B4E5-F3DA8A6D0413%7Dti52.pdf

P. 13 re: Australian rates from 1920:
http://eprints.utas.edu.au/287/36/Chapter__31__Suicide.pdf

Also please see Beyond Blue for information on depression and suicide.
Self help for various mental health issues is also available at Mood Gym.

pynchme:"association between women, feminism and male suicide"

A great deal of males suicide in the context of family breakdown, following years of struggling with a system that is inherently hostile with no support, often very soon after having had the CSA take the last few dollars from their bank account, leaving them destitute. Try going to the supermarket on a Saturday, filling your trolley with food and then being told "sorry, that account is empty" when you have the kids coming to spend their one day of the week with you.

That situation is a creation of feminism.

The other large group represented in the male suicide stats is young men who feel as though they have no prospects. The chance of an Australian male going to uni is about half that of Australian females, thanks to feminist ideology ruining the education system and if he can't get an apprenticeship (only about 20% manage that) his only prospect is some sort of menial work. Very often his response is to take his car out and drive into a tree, usually after getting drunk and leaving his seatbely off. Qld is reviewing records of single vehicle accidents in the belief that up to half are unrecorded suicides. Nearly all the victims are males.

Your response is typical: minimise, disparage, pretebd it doesn't exist, after all it's just men, they must have been defective, eh?

In the meantime, Beyond Blue has been hijacked by the feminist lobby, with massive amounts of funding going to whinging women with PND and almost nothing being spent to stop men topping themselves, despite the fact, as Dougthebear points out, they do it at 4-5 times the rate that women do.

Suzeonline, nice of you to give the Pomeranian a pat. If only he'd get over that annoying habit of wetting himself whenever a man enters the room...

pynchme,

'I am not sure what I think of those; but if men are offended, I'd like to understand it. If they are a problem then they should go, of course.'

How could you not understand? Seriously. I think you're proving how clueless you really are about equality. Raving about women being reduced to sex objects, ever protective of young women's body image, then not understanding what could possibly be offensive about the adverts.

What those ads do is encourage the notion that a man's worth should be determined by the size of his penis. It's also saying, 'we don't hate you because of your behaviour, we think your genitals are actually sexually inadequate, and that's a much more shameful thing than endangering the lives of others. I suppose belittling men is fair game for your average feminist.

Man you can spot misogyny at 200 paces but cant spot misandry even when it's shoved in your face.

I think when it comes to suicide, men do the job right, because they're more serious about it. Many a teenage girl wants help and attention, but doesn't really want to die.

pynchme, a quote from your first link:
"Anomic suicide is most likely to be the more prevalent form of suicide in an Australian setting. It refers to the deterioration or disjunction of a person's integration of their social values with their social environment. Therefore, unemployment, economic depression or significant
life changes can promote a sense of anomie - a feling of isolation, confusion or disorientation with their current place in society and what their future holds for them."

As I said...

And:
"Since the 1960s particularly, suicide rates among young men under 25 have increased significantly. This is associated with issues of unemployment, changes in the Australian family, substance abuse and increasing interpersonal violence."

Yet no one ever mentions male-directed violence...

And:
"For men the principal factors affecting suicide in South Australia were (Hassan
1995):
a sense of failure in life
e family problems
physical illness
mental illness
loneliness
financial/unemployment problems"

Advertisements such as the one you like so much go directly to self-esteem, especially in young men and are no doubt contributing to the steady rise in male suicide. Feminists everywhere should be proud...

One of the difficulties has little to do with feminism: that is really just a distraction in this debate. No thinking person could argue that there had to be action taken to bring a greater equality between the sexes in this society.

Feminism cannot be blamed for the difficulties that some men have with the Child Support Agency either. That has more to do with relationship breakdown and the role of the family, rather than feminism.

The difficulty I see is that of the changing of the points of reference for what is 'normal' in gender relationships. In previous times neither sex actually had aspirations of fulfilment. They just accepted who they were and where they were. Now people (usually women) seek 'individual fulfilment' and if their partner doesn't meet those requirements then the partner is disposable so that someone else may be sought.

Usually (but not always) the person being disposed of in a marriage is the male - the vast majority of separations being initiated by the female in her search for personal fulfilment. Often that fulfilment involves seeking a ‘soul mate’ or someone who is closer to having feminine emotional characteristics and communication styles.

In the meantime women who decide to get involved with men who do not fit this paradigm are ridiculed. We have all heard the term WAG used for wives and girlfriends of footballers, for instance. WAG being a negative term. Woman who like men who act like men used to act are seen as inferior than their new age counterparts.

The new paradigm for relationships is that the definition of a ‘good’ relationship is that which women prefer, and has little to do with how men want to be in relationship. Masculinity has no place in these new relationships, and where there is no masculinity the males are simply expected to be poor imitations of females.

I repeat that this has little to do with feminism: there are many feminists who value their male partners and their sons: who do not want to see men put down whilst women advance.

I get what you're saying bear but it's a bit more complex. I think it goes deeper into the general attempt by feminists to re-define masculinity. Part of the feminists beef with patriachy was that men defined what was feminine to some degree, limiting women. Women now behave like a reformed smoker, deciding men now should re-define their gender. But that's for men to do, IF THEY SO WISH. Nobody likes being told what to do or how to be. Women didn't like it, and now men don't like it.

Obviously feminism is valid in saying men shouldn't hit women, rape etc, where it affects women. But it attempts to go further, and proposes traits such as aggressiveness, competitiveness, ambition and dominance (which quite often flow with testosterone), to be undesirable. As a lot of particularly older men have been brought up identifying these traits with being masculine, the thrust of feminism is to eradicate these traits, or people who hold or value these traits. Easily misconstrued as man-hating.

Just like you say, all types of relationships between men and women these days seem to be defined in female terms of reference. In school, the workplace, in romantic relationships, young boys are encouraged to communicate in a feminine style, and to meet the female's needs. There is no corresponding attempt to bridge the gap by teaching young women to appreciate men's needs in a relationship, and accept the way men may choose to define themselves and how they are comfortable in communicating. A male is assertive, a woman FEELS threatened, ergo the male IS being aggressive. The frame of reference is the woman. Her needs.

Sure in many ways it is good for men to be taught to better relate to women and take into account how women communicate and their different needs. But if you have a boy in school, and the messages he gets boil down to 'be more like the girls, they're good and you're bad', or he is constantly taught that the girls needs are more important than his it's not healthy.