Australian men commit suicide at a rate 3 times higher than women and nobody talks about it...
In my last post I talked about some of the issues facing women in today's society, specifically issues perpetrated by men.
Today however it's time to look at some of the issues faced by men in society.
Both genders have their problems within society, while women's issues seem to be getting more and more attention (as they should) it seems men's issues are being left behind. If we want equality, it goes both ways.
Australian men commit suicide at a rate 3 times higher than their female counterparts. They are blatantly prejudiced against within the legal system when it comes to custody of children, and the rate of male workplace deaths is staggeringly higher. Though I was unable to find specific statistics for Australia in the U.S 93% of all workplace fatality's were male.
In Australia men commit suicide at a ratio of 3:1 and this statistic has not changed in almost 2 decades. Sadly enough this is an improvement on past statistics. The ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) shows the ratio being as igh as 4:1 in the 1990's before settling at it's current rate in 2000. This rate is consistent across every state and territory of our nation and in 2016, suicide represented 2.6% of all male deaths and 0.9% of all female deaths.
Whilst many factors contribute to this one of the biggest is our utterly woeful way at dealing with depression and mental illness. We often refuse to seek help due to a myriad of things, social stigma, our own fragile ego or simply just not understanding what is going on and not being emotionally able to deal with it. Another saddening contributor is the way our legal system treats men in custody battles.
21 men in Australia commit suicide every week because they are refused access to their children. Let's be real here for a minute, if you keep your children from their father and he is a good father, then you are a bad mother. You may hate his guts, you may wish he was dead, maybe he cheated on you, maybe he hit you. But if he is a good father that's whats relevant here. If he wont hurt his children, if he will provide for them, if he will love them and care for them, then whatever it is that happened between you should stay just that. Because this is about your children not you, sorry.
This statistic is not only heartbreaking but avoidable. Mothers by all means if he's an abusive shitty father, if he does drugs in front of his children if he neglects them. Keep those kids away. But don't let your prejudices towards him affect your children's lives. Some of this stems from sexism, a lot of older male judges still hold the belief that a woman should stay home and raise the children, this is not only unfair on women but also on men as it somewhat automatically projects them as being bad fathers, unable to look after children.
As good as it is to see women's issues being brought into the front line an unfortunate and unnecessary side effect is mens issues being left in the dark. Equality means fair for all of us. If you don't fight for that then you don't deserve anyone else to fight for you. Men with depression struggle everyday and societal issues compact this and magnify it, unfortunately that doesn't translate to more exposure.
If you or anyone you know suffers from depression or suicidal thoughts please seek help
Australia
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636 https://www.beyondblue.org.au/
Lifeline: 13 11 14
U.S
Suicide hotline: 800-273-8255 http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
https://www.healthyplace.com/suicide/suicide-hotline-phone-numbers/
Canada
https://suicideprevention.ca/need-help/
Almost all suicidal thoughts are temporary, if you need help never be ashamed to ask for it. We all need help sometimes and you're never alone.
Steem on Steemians
Resources
http://www.mindframe-media.info/for-media/reporting-suicide/facts-and-stats
https://www.lifeline.org.au/about-lifeline/lifeline-information/statistics-on-suicide-in-australia
https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/how-come-nobody-talks-about-the-gender-workplace-death-gap/
Great post Chris, this is an important topic people should be talking about. Thank you. ❤
hugs, love and respect for highlighting this issue.
I'm a woman over here in the US, but I am also passionate about father's rights. We have the same problem here where good men automatically lose custody battles to bad mothers just because they are the man in the situation. Its terrible and more people do need to speak up about it.
I never really thought about that being related to suicide rates though. I'm glad you brought that up. It's a very sad and unfair thing, but it happens all the time.
Thanks for the thought provoking article. And yes, absolutely, just because women have more rights now, and they have been oppressed in the past, does not mean that men are inherently evil or that their rights and issues should be ignored.
As you said--equality goes both ways.
We need more women like you, and we need more men to stand up for womens rights. It's when the "supposed enemy " or "perceived opposition" stands by their side that people realise not everyones unreasonable and their differences dont mean they cant fight a common enemy.
Agreed.
@bigdizzle: I was denied access to my kids because I emailed my ex saying I want to kill myself. It was out of frustration. All i wanted was access to my savings which was in joint name. I was locked out of my saving and because I made a threat to kill myself I had to go to court and spend $45k to get access to my kids. On my daughter's birthday I was given permission to have dinner with her with a supervisor of sorts sitting next to me. They lied and plotted like dacoits. Without court orders they illegally kept the children away from me.
When my children wanted to go to the loo, they denied permission for me to accompany them. This is in a crowded restaurant. No one will fucking know how fucking bad the situation is. Seriously...Don't know what the solution is. It's so badly flawed.
I had to bite my lip and go through the whole thing like the sanest man. If I had blinked they would have pushed me further down. They ganged up and hit me when it was my worst moment in life! Family courts are as bad as Shariat laws. I'm only hoping that I have the same anger and fury when my children turn 13 so that I can speak up and criticise the women who ganged up against me. I want to win the rights to write about my story...second by second. the whole agony! Most of these are well-known feminists around scoring massive government grants to do scam research projects. They lie their way through to win their case. It's organised robbery. All this is despite me giving up all my claims. It's unbelievable.
We all have lapses in judgement, you overreacted with your statement, hell even if you didnt. Not enough reason to deny you access. I'm so sorry you went through that brother, and still are by the sounds of it.
I don't know what the solution is either, but we gotta do something, at least talk about it and get it out there. stories like yours. Sadly I don't think we will see it change for quite a while.
All my assets were in join name. I had to borrow to do a forensic test to prove I'm not suicidal. lol..Can you freaking believe it! Thankfully the judge smashed it and gave me immediate access. But to get the court hearing I had to wait!!! No phone calls, no nothing. Suddenly cut off access. My son had a football injury at school and the school refused to give me access initially based on the mother's input..all this without having a court order. They all acted illegally. I hope my bitcoin goes through the moon and I can go back to the court to wrestle these tyrants. I'm sick of their tyranny. Thanks bro for the post. I've never vented this stuff before..but when I read about the suicide rates among men it sort of invited me to intervene...
thats fucked man. And yea i assume illegal, if they havent been given something to say you cant see your child surely they cant stop you wtf.
And cheers, Like or hate my posts i hope to invite discussion on the topic either way. Plenty of people probably feel alone when they go through that sort of stuff but in reality theres thousands of others who know exactly how it is and it sucks.
ye all i know is..i can never imagine stopping my ex from seeing the children. That will be worst thing to do to my kids. What do you do man! That's how it is. Yes a lot of men are standing up and talking now. I got a call from a friend just yesterday...we have only started sharing notes you see. there should be a legal way to handle this menace. Right now it's a very sexist framework. It's like men can't be a good parent and only women can do parenting. Cheers bud!
Equality will never happen, it is an illusion
Long known that many farmer's wives (particularly those out in the semi-desert regions prone to ruinous drought/flood cycles) do not let their husbands go out alone with guns - because they never came back
Legion are those Australians who have discovered the 'lucky country' is anything but
wow i never knew that. that's actually heartbreaking
You can imagine that not only is nature against you with dought or floods there is also the agribusiness markets. Most properties are mortgaged to banks or finance companies. So in the end if they don't get the land from disasters occurring in one generation, they forclose on it in the next. Knowing that your family is on the brink of destitution every day when you drive out into the bush with your dog and a rifle has been just too much to accept for some: that they failed to provide and protect. And only their dog returns home.
Unfortunately there is a trend against men pushed by feminists and main stream. The old feminists were pro woman, today's are anti men, and they are not just woman.
When men are told masculinity is toxic by those who hate men, they try to please those haters and fail as men. Its loose loose. You will never please someone who hates you just because you're you. If you're a man be a man, if your a woman be a woman. If you're a human love your fellow man. Asking men to be less manly and woman to be less womanly is a recipe for destruction.
Ill give you there may be a slight trend, but i dont think its malicious or even purposeful. Just an unfortunate by product of some more extreme views.
I agree, love everyone regardless. These things dont change the type of person you are.