Just being a man puts you out higher risk for suicide. Graham Scott thinks it’s time we changed that.
‘Hold your ground, hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.
‘A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day!
‘An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down. But it is not this day!
‘This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you – stand, Men of the West!’
This is Aragon’s battle speech to men who are preparing for what they think is their last stand. The speech, near the end of Lord of the Rings, may only be in the film rather than the book but today it speaks to all men of the West, either side of the Atlantic. It’s time we stood together and fought.
For centuries we ruled, in a world of patriarchy power. But the changes began decades ago. We have been under attack ever since and there are clear signs that we have wilted under the onslaught.
The clearest sign of all is in the latest figures released by the Office for National Statistics in Britain. We’re not dying at the hands of our enemies, we are killing ourselves in ever increasing numbers. The kamikaze survivors’ club (yes there is such a thing!) would be impressed.
Men are killing themselves at about three times the rate that women do, and men in the 44-59 age bracket are the group most at risk. Specifically, white, middle aged males from lower socioeconomic groups. As bad as they were last year, except the numbers are even worse now.
Stateside Stats
In the USA it’s a similar story, with the number of suicides overall surpassing the number killed in car crashes. Again, it’s very much a white man thing. In 2010, for example, 38,364 men and women killed themselves in the USA. Of those, 30,277 were men. Of those, 27,422 were white men. *
To put that in perspective, in Afghanistan in the same year, 499 US service personnel died in combat. It remains the worst year for fatalities in Afghanistan.
Work and Warg Riders
We know that lack of work, when work is how so many men define themselves, is a major factor in suicide. It’s no coincidence that in Britain the worst figures are in the ex-industrial heartlands of the North West, now laid bare of much of the heavy industry that has provided work there since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century.
We know too that men have been under constant bombardment by some sectors of society for decades, and this has an effect. Every lead male in a sit-com or cartoon is either stupid, lazy or cowardly or else all three. And if it’s a BBC production, it means any play or drama as well.
We’re told we’re redundant, not just in terms of work, but socially as well. We’re dinosaurs, unable to function in today’s high-tech, highly sensitive work environments where absentmindedly calling a female work colleague ‘love’ can land you in a tribunal.
Let’s face it, we’ve long been shrieked at and hated by a sector of society that has all the grace and sensitivity of Warg Riders.
How to Stop the Bleeding
And now it’s time for that to stop. Right now we’re like an army that’s being overrun. We’re getting cut off from each other, isolated, losing heart. And we’re dying in huge numbers, a fact made even worse that it’s at our own hands. And it’s time for that to stop.
How? We can’t literally fight back, that’s clearly off the table. Fighting one extreme with the other extreme is very tempting but completely wrong and self-defeating in the long term. So we will aim for the middle path. They want equality, so do we.
Equality in the divorce courts, with access to our children, with equal representation in higher education and many industries where young women now routinely outnumber men. And equal outcomes in suicide data.
Above all, we need the space and time to work this out for ourselves. Women had that – they needed it and deserved it – and they got it. They had time to work out what they were, what they wanted to be, and by and large it has happened.
Men have never had this opportunity. We’ve gone from being old fashioned men, through New Man, through Metrosexual Geek to any other number of labels, but most of those labels have been stuck on us, we didn’t do that ourselves.
No-one Gets Left Behind
We need to regroup, we need to communicate more with each other, we need to mind others’ backs. We must not leave anyone behind. This must not develop any further into an ‘every man for himself’ scenario. Men are being isolated in their little outposts and that’s proving fatal.
Life is L
The very excellent Australian psychologist Steve Biddulph says that the biggest cause of death in men is the ‘L word – loneliness’. We all know that it can be lonely being a man, solitary, even if we’re married or in a relationship. We need to work on that. Talk more to each other, be more honest, more open, quicker to offer help not just advice or a joke.
And when we’ve done that, we can then start on being better fathers and role models for the young men in our family and community. There are too many who haven’t seen their dad since they were tiny, too many that find the role model they’re desperate for in a 17-year-old angry gang member rather than a mature male who has their best interests at heart.
Here’s The Thing
There’s a lot to do. Men in the West are under sustained attack for everything from how they think, what religion they follow, even their entire reason for existing. And the only people who are going to sort this are us, men.
So here’s the first step. Within the next two days, reach out to someone you suspect is struggling, a man who’s out of work or clearly unhappy or upset. Try to make things better. Try to get them to talk and really listen when they do.
It’s just a small thing, but it needs to start if we’re going to come out of this without too many more casualties. Men of the West, it’s time to stand together.
—originally posted at Fellow HQ
—modified photo Lafayette Hubbard /Flickr Creative Commons
FOOTNOTE
*USA Suicide: 2010 Official Final Data
“Men have never had this opportunity. We’ve gone from being old fashioned men, through New Man, through Metrosexual Geek to any other number of labels, but most of those labels have been stuck on us, we didn’t do that ourselves.” I think it rather naive (or maybe you could better clarify) to think that woman had some kind of “time out” in life to figure things out. Women did not have this “opportunity” you speak of. Life doesn’t stop for anyone. adapt or die. It’s the golden rule of evolution of the species. Men are now having, not the same,… Read more »
@lilbits,
We have met the enemy and he is us! Namely other men.
Graham, I could not agree more with you. Men must fight back! I am a relentless brawler by nature. I challenge all the BS espoused against men. I totally reject the conventional wisdom. I am only concerned about the human dignity of all, men and women alike. The war must be waged on all fronts. We must start calling out people, companies, politicians for their unfair behavior towards men. The sad thing is that it is other men who are behind these attacks on men! That should not come as a surprise. We men have been killing one another forever.… Read more »
“Many men find his help mate, woman, created by God created unavailable or unattainable.”
Should read,
“Many men find his help mate, woman, created by God either unavailable or unattainable.”
“Many men find his help mate, woman, created by God created unavailable or unattainable.. ” I’m sorry, but are you saying that men are killing themselves because they no longer get to pick and choose the women they want without the woman having a say as if they were a litter of puppies? The first step in healing, for some, especially religious, men, is accepting that god didn’t put women on earth to serve them. Men wouldn’t be so lonely if they stopped believing the only physical relationship they can/should have is one that is sexual and with a woman.… Read more »
@lilbit, Overall I don’t object to much of what you’re saying. No, men are not killing themselves because they cannot get the hot women they want…I think it is because they find female companionship unavailable to him. I just don’t feel most women understand how alone and lonely most men in America are. Even married men. I was once a married man and lonely in the marriage. I do not want to be dismissive of the significant challenges women face. They are real too. Yes, I agree that G-d did not put woman on this earth to serve men. Women… Read more »
Jules, yes, I do think this is an Anglosphere issue. And most definitely a Northern hemisphere one. I agree with you – and Illbit – that we’re far too buttoned up still, so totally unsure about our relationships with both men and women, particularly any form of physical touch. At one extreme we have the feminist snarling at a man brushing her arm as he tries to squeeze past her in a crowd, at the other we have men who can’t show emotion other than for sex. I remember going out with a girl who cried when we had a… Read more »