Scottish young women are topping themselves in record numbers. They still haven’t caught up with young men, though. How come the government is so keen on closing the employment gap, but has done so little to end this terrible gender imbalance?
The study holds teen magazines partly responsible for the rise. I don’t recall any teen magazines directly advocating suicide (unlike this lot), but I can see where the researchers are coming from. Last time I read More, I certainly lost the will to live.
They still haven’t caught up with young men, though. How come the government is so keen on closing the employment gap, but has done so little to end this terrible gender imbalance?
IIRC, it’s because men pick more effective methods. I seem to recall reading somewhere that women attempt suicide more, but because we pick half-arsed methods like overdosing, while men pick more violent methods like hanging and jumping off things, men succeed more.
I could put my feminist hat on and say it’s all about gender roles, and once those are gone, the imbalance should disappear. (Though I wouldn’t like to predict whether men will top themselves less often or women will top themselves more.)
Lorna, how would you deal with the deep-rooted biological differences with men and women? Maybe differences in suicide methods really are entirely cultural (though I wouldn’t bet on it), but countless other differences certainly aren’t.
You’ve read More?
Peter, I don’t think Lorna is disagreeing with you. What I think she’s saying is that the imbalance in suicide rates is artefactual: more males succeed in killing themselves. This doesn’t mean that more males try; they just use more lethal methods. And this begs other questions: do fewer females kill themselves because women are more emotionally robust (biological explanation)? or because they have less, in general, to be seriously unhappy about (cultural)?
I think you’re right about the "deep-rooted biological differences" but I suspect you believe that they have a utility which I doubt. I’m happy to believe that women are different from men; but Margaret Thatcher’s lack of a willy (well she said it) isn’t an argument against her suitability for PM.
Peter, unless these "deep-rooted biological differences" make it impossible for women to hang themselves or jump off tall buildings (I dunno, I’ve never had much trouble climbing stairs), I’m not sure I see the relevance.
Eh, ignore me, I’ve just realised you’re probably talking about my hypothetical-with-feminist-hat-on desire to obliterate fixed gender roles. In which case, I suspect our views are so opposed there’s not much point getting into it.
Well, the thing is, however much we might disagree about the rights and wrongs of ‘gender roles’, science does tell you rather a lot about what is and isn’t possible when it comes to eradicating them. So we may not be able to find a common ideological reference point, but we can still refer back to science and see whether gender roles will really be ‘gone’ if we just get the requisite cultural values.
"however much we might disagree about the rights and wrongs of ‘gender roles’, science does tell you rather a lot about what is and isn’t possible when it comes to eradicating them."
Complete and utter nonsense. There are very deep biological differences between a disabled person in a wheelchair and some able to walk. Now, the disabled person can’t use a routefinder bus, or climb stairs, etc. But we can alter our physical and social environment to ensure that the disabled person can perform all the activities required to take a full part in modern, democratic society. ow, you might argue, ah, but they still can’t play rugby for England. To which I would say, I’ve seen your photo and neither can you. But beside that, considering sport as a participatory exercise – as it is for the vast majority of sportsmen and women, as, logically, only a tiny fraction can be elite – with the right adjustments to our environment there can be sport that the disabled person can take part in. And there is.
We have no qualms about altering our physical and social environment to ensure that disabled people play a full part in our society. Now, I do not see women as disabled – but it seems clear from your comments that you do. For me, their disadvantage is the result of the structure of society – physical and cultural – that has been put in place by men. You see this structure as somehow natural, and therefore where women do not suceed it is due to their chromosomal malformation.
Incidentally, for all your claims about what science can do, and I notice it is a theme you return to on your blog – especially where you can extropolate some result or other to justify inequalities – do you have either any scientific training, or any training in the history and philosophy of science?
I’m pretty much with Backword Dave – "I suspect you believe that they have a utility which I doubt". There may well be major biological differences (apart from the obvious), but really, so what? It doesn’t therefore follow that the society we’ve got is a result of them, or that everything we do is because of them. We’re not still, as Pratchett puts it, eating our meat raw (or at all, in my case) and sleeping in trees.
I’ve eaten steak tartare and slept in a hedge (not on the same night mind you) – does that mean I’m allowed to be a sexist?
There is also a massive difference between saying "in general men, on the other hand in general women…" and actually applying that to real individual people.
It is reasonable to say that "in general, most men want to do a job that is masculine or gender neutral, or most women want to do a job that is feminine or gender neutral" whether that be for societal or biological reasons.
But, to say that Darren can’t be a nursery nurse, because he’s male, or that Kelly can’t be a plumber, because she’s female, is denying the essential Darren-ness or Kelly-ness of that individual. And there is absolutely no reason why Darren can’t be a nursery nurse or Kelly a plumber, except that society thinks they’re odd for wanting that.
Indeed – and the number of male midwives is a minuscule proportion of the total, but there’s no reason on earth why they can’t do the job just as well: it’s just as much a medical profession as a doctor or, come to that, a gynaecologist.
I suspect in this case it’s the term "midwife" that’s as much a factor as anything else, even though the "-wife" suffix refers to the child-bearer, not the actual midwife.
Focussing on gender roles to the exclusion of what the individual wants to do leads to some really stupid behaviour, as well. Let’s see. There was the guy who, when I held open one half of a set of double doors for him, looked at me in sheer panic, looked at the door, looked at me, looked at the door, and then rushed through the other door, as though he was worried he’d catch the Role Reversal Cooties or something. Then there was the random guy at work who didn’t know me from Eve but nevertheless snatched my wheelbarrow out of my hands and moved it a little way for me without a word, leaving me trying to come up with a polite way to say "What the fuck? Gimme my stuff back!" Then there’s the massive number of times I’ve been described as "that man" – apparently a manual job trumps large breasts in the gender recognition game.
It’s not just sexist; it’s bizarre, and frequently rude.
My daughter Rowan has a genuinely unisex name, which I suspect will be a fairly considerable asset when it comes to dealing with people with that kind of mentality – especially if they start a working relationship via e-mail and develop it far enough for it to be impossible for the other party to back out once the hideous truth ("Ewww, a girl!") is revealed.
Then again, by the time she’s old enough for this scenario to come about we might have moved on from this crude pigeonholing – who knows?
Incidentally, I’m currently involved with a complex large-scale IT project whose overall manager is both female and several decades on from the first flush of youth. And she’s the first person I turn to when I need technical gibberish translated into layman’s English.
"Then there’s the massive number of times I’ve been described as "that man" – apparently a manual job trumps large breasts in the gender recognition game."
Seriously, is this in person? If so, I’m [even more] amazed [than I was before] at the lunacy of some of the people who unfortunately share my gender…
Seriously, this is in person. On some of these occasions I had my hair up under a hat, but on a lot of them, I didn’t. It’s maaaaaaaaaad.
"What’s that man doing in that aviary?" while I think "Bloody hell, I’m not that butch…"
Ah, take heart. It wasn’t always blokes. Actually, that just depresses me.