Can a stereotype kill you?
Eighty-six percent of all adolescent suicides are male. And it doesn’t get much better with age; across all age groups, males are four times more likely to commit suicide than females. In fact, suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for all U.S. men. These numbers only loom all the larger when one considers that suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students.
So let’s go back to the opening question. It may seem silly, but it’s an important one to ask, especially when other statistics, such as the high rate of male accidental deaths (the third leading male cause of death according to the CDC), are factored into the equation. It’s important because more and more often culturally accepted “male” behavior is being cited as the cause of alarming statistics such as these.
The University of Cincinnati suggests that in the western world, and the U.S. specifically, there are a lot of “cultural messages about what it means to be masculine” including the beliefs that men don’t cry or show emotion, that men have to be physically and emotionally strong, and that men can take care of themselves and shouldn’t ask for help. Of course, this is certainly not a new revelation. The ideals and assumptions about what makes an “ideal” man are so ingrained into our culture that we don’t even notice them. It’s like the stereotype of men not asking for directions, or the belief that normal men don’t talk about “girly stuff,” like emotions, with their friends. The opposing stereotype is, obviously, that women are obsessed with talking about their feelings. But this “obsession” could be saving their lives.
“Women process their experiences with friends. They discuss their feelings, seek feedback and take advice,” says George E. Murphy, M.D. and professor of psychiatry at the Washington University School of Medicine. This approach to problem solving often leads women to seek professional help and makes them “much more likely to tell a physician how they feel and cooperate in the prescribed treatment, and as a result, women get better treatment for their depression.”
Men, though, often do without the benefit of professional help because it is just not considered manly to do so. And it’s not just for emotional problems either, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services men are twice as likely as women to go two years or more without seeing a physician. Perhaps this is part of the reason why men generally have higher levels of substance abuse and are more likely to suffer chronic conditions and fatal diseases than women. Murphy worries that men believe they “are supposed to competent in all areas” and thus avoid any action, like seeking advice, which may show the opposite. It’s childish to associate medical help with weakness, but unfortunately society has conditioned many men to think that way.
Of course, the stereotypical man may not even acknowledge his problems, let alone see a professional about them. Abigail Mansfield reported in the International Journal of Men’s health that denying pain, depression, or discomfort allows “men to both preserve social status in individual social interactions and to maintain gender stereotype in which men are considered strong.” It’s the same reason why some fraternities compete in binge drinking, or why guys brag about how many women they’ve slept with, it’s all a matter of maintaining social status. And it’s especially hard to help someone who won’t even admit they have a problem.
But suicide isn’t entirely a male issue, women actually attempt suicide almost twice as much as men. But these failed attempts usually include methods that allow for second thoughts or rescue, such as an overdose of sleeping pills. In comparison men tend to use handguns or ropes to end their lives, methods that are lethally effective and that imply that they are deeply afraid of being saved.
“Power and control are critically important to men,” says Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology. To be known as someone who attempted suicide would suggest not only weakness, but also incompetence, failures that are “antithetical to the traditional male role.
With male suicide being such an enormous problem, one would expect that there would be all sorts of studies and foundations dedicated to eradicating it. And there are, in other countries. In the UK the Doctor Patient Partnership, the British Medical Association, and the Samaritans are working together on a campaign that targets potential male suicides by distributing literature and educating doctors on how to talk to their patients. An interview study was conducted in Cambridge and Sheffield on male masculinity and how this affected their emotional well being. In Australia the issue has been on the table for several years along with another potent concern, that boys are continually falling behind girls in the classroom. The “Inquiry into the Education of Boys” came out in 1999 and explored how modern methods of raising and educating boys affected the “quality of their lives as adults” and that was particularly concerned with the high suicide rate among them. But tragically there is little or no funding stateside.
Berman laments the fact that investors aren’t interested in boys and men. “As much as I would love to lead the charge, try to go out and get funding for it,” he says. “If there is no research money available, no academician is going to go that route.”
Some may argue that these stereotypes are such a central part of who were are that it is impossible to change them. After all, they are stereotypes. But just because the root of this problem lies in societal values and norms doesn’t mean that it can’t be addressed. Just look at the feminist movement of the 80’s and 90’s and what that did for feminine ideas of education and careers! But in order to change the trend it is necessary to get people to care about the problem in the first place, to have them want the problem to be studied, solved, and eradicated.
Just look at your fathers, your brothers, your friends, and it shouldn’t be too hard.