this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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I live in Australia
The homicide rate here is 0.86 deaths per 100k people per year
Of those, approx 66% are male.
The suicide rate is 12.3 deaths per 100k per year.
Of those, 75% are male.
The statistics are similar in most Western countries.
Pause for a second and think about the last time that you heard that mentioned either in casual conversation or in the news media.
It is not spoken about.
One third of family violence victims are male as well. The government's policy is that we don't exist.
I think so, yes, but that's beyond the point. I don't think anyone here is claiming or even implying that "Women don't suffer from issues", cause well, they do. The point they're making is that it's not talked about for men, or at the very least, not nearly as much as it should be.
Yes women do suffer, and that should be treated respectfully and have empathy for, we just think it should be the same for men as well, cause they do suffer from a ton of mental health issues as well.
Rest assured, the visibility of that statistic is very much in the minority. Feel free to look up the funding ratios for domestic violence against women and domestic violence against men. One third of the support won't even come close.
It's not a contest. Those minority of men are still people who need support.
It does. The point is that 1/3 of the victims have nowhere to turn. Almost all the help is directed at women, with active hostility to male "victims". This leaves abused men nowhere to turn.
It's also worth noting that many places have extremely gender biased rules/laws when it comes to domestic violence. The default is often to just arrest the male. This both creates a bias in the data, as well as allowing some women to weaponise domestic violence laws.
Men are also far less likely to be believed, and so report less.
It may well be men are more violent, once these are accounted for, but the bias is far less than the raw statistics make out.
Yeah, also like 97% of murders are done by men, BUT more to the point, if men had good mental health care and had a culture that gave them better mental health outcomes, this would mean a lot of murder would never happen. People think 'toxic masculinity' means 'men are bad' but that's not it, it's that I grew up in a culture where a man saying he mistakenly thought he might actually be gay at one point because a bunch of kids in middle school ganged up on him repeatedly and attacked him for ''being gay'', was responded to by the other guys walking out of the room and calling him gay. Or when me and one other roommate resolved an argument by discussing our shared religious beliefs concerning Jesus's words to love one another, the other roommates with the same religion called us fags. These were adult men. Point being, our culture is toxic TO MEN. It's not doing much besides creating a lot of men who can't talk about their feelings, and have to be constantly on guard about being attacked for being 'gay' by admitting they have feelings or affection. There's a lot of guys married to someone that will mock them for getting too emotional or bringing up their feelings. It's often clearly communicated that those aspects of a man are not appreciated, nor welcomed. A lot of guys would much rather feel welcomed and appreciated for being fully human.
In my area, cis het women are largely dividable into groups that understand this and wish cis het men would (it maybe admit it if they secretly understand), and cis het women who understand this and grow hostile when other women point it out, endangering the largest vector of exploitation. And I get it, since most of the cis het men do it to women, when they can (red state). But an eye for an eye is really not making anything better for anyone, it's just who can con who first and worst, for the longest time frame. It's kind of like narc-ing the narc turns you into the narc. I wish everyone would just go work on personal healing and growth and encourage others it's ok and desirable to do this, rather than making a competition of who can be the sickest. But that wouldn't be profitable to the overlords, who stigmatize it, make it inaccessible, and exploit our illnesses, mental and physical.
Yeah I agree, and it's frustrating people do this to eachother, solidarity is so deeply necessary and so difficult to convince people about.
Yes it is. Men and women can support each other holistically and as a whole. We just have to realize there are opportunists among us, and they are also unwell, more unwell than us. I'm not sure how to handle persistent, demonstrable undermining, but I'd gather after a couple or few instances, sadly, somehow segregating them if and until they seek serious professional therapy from experienced therapists trained in personality disorders with a proven track record of the behavior being curtailed over long periods of time. But I am not a therapist.
It does, but at least where I live, there are systems in place to help female victims of domestic violence. Of course it would be better if there was no violence at all, and more could always be done to help them, but I haven't really heard of a place where men could go if they're victims of domestic violence.
I see an article about it, every now and then. But it's definitely not something that's being addressed with a sense of urgency. I guess the attitude that men just need to endure in silence, which I grew up with, is still pervasive. Close relationships with men, where you can talk about emotions, were discouraged, because that's gay and gay is bad. I know how idiotic and toxic that is, but I also notice how deeply ingrained this is for me. When I see men show emotions, I instinctively think of them as weak. Then I have to make a conscious effort to think how dumb that is. As I think I'm not the only one who was taught this fucked up shit, the only way forward seems to be a generational effort. Each generation tries to bring up their children a little less fucked up until we end up with a somewhat sane attitude two or three generations from now.
There was an article in my country in the news recently about men needing help too. The comments were ghastly. That women need it more and it was because of men, etc. Only one person in those comments stood up and addressed that actually men do need help too and that part of the problem could be to help men to cope and offering support because they don't have as many options as other groups.