There's a gender paradox with suicide. Men die very much more often than women in most western countries, but women have much higher rates of self harm and self-reported suicidality.
This is a complex phenomena.
But if women start using more lethal methods we will see the ratio of male:female deaths by suicide change.
To prevent suicide you want to address the misery that causes people to feel suicidal, and since women report similar levels of misery we need to give them some focus, and that focus is currently weak in research and prevention efforts.
>There's a gender paradox with suicide. Men die very much more often than women in most western countries, but women have much higher rates of self harm and self-reported suicidality.
I've heard women attempt three times as much as men, but how much of that is explained by the fact that once you complete, you can no longer attempt. Had every one who succeeded failed, how many more attempts would they have added to the total?
It is kinda like the paradox where planes should have armor in the places they don't get shot, because the planes shot in those places are the ones which crash and are never in the data set to measure.
In integrating to highly male fields, straddling the mindfuck of "when am I being too excluded due to my gender" vs. "when am I being too included due to my gender" must be salient too. On top of the normal traumas like impostor syndrome, adding that valence of paranoia and political intrigue to your work life can't be healthy.
I get reminded of the situation of domestic violence. Both men and women self-report the same amount of being victims, but women uses less lethal violence and thus die more from domestic violence compared to men.
The method matter when it comes to outcomes. With suicide it means men die more, with domestic violence it mean women die more.
Addressing the misery that causes people to cause violence against themselves or others is a good idea. What ever priority we want to use for one is likely a good choice for the other.
So you think women die less often from suicide because because they are less competent at executing it? That seems very unlikely to me. While I am open to the idea that different sexes might be better or worse at certain things, suicide seems simple enough to be mastered by both men and women.
> Globally, death by suicide occurred about 1.8 times more often among males than among females in 2008, and 1.7 times in 2015.[4][5][6] In the western world, males die by suicide three to four times more often than do females.[4][7] This greater male frequency is increased in those over the age of 65.[8] Suicide attempts are between two and four times more frequent among females.[9][10][11] Researchers have attributed the difference between attempted and completed suicides among the sexes to males using more lethal means to end their lives.[7][12][13] The extent of suicidal thoughts is not clear, but research suggests that suicidal thoughts are more common among females than among males, particularly in those under the age of 25.[11][14]
> Then why do you expect women will start using more effective methods?
Because we are seeing the beginnings of method substitution in the data, especially for older women.
> Why are they not using them now?
We don't know, which is why it's a complex phenomenom.
We can make guesses. We can guess that women find it easier to access support than men, that women are less isolated than men and so more likely to be found after an attempt, that the elements of contagion around suicide and self-harm prime men and women differently so they use different methods.
I could see that being possible as gender roles drift towards more unisex as part of existing trends. A dark side effect of a good thing. As for why women's suicide methods tend to leave "prettier" more intact corpses as opposed to self-obliterative overkill that makes a horrid mess.
It seems strange at first that concern for apperance and tidyness but given that suicides usually involve skewed priorities.
This is a complex phenomena.
But if women start using more lethal methods we will see the ratio of male:female deaths by suicide change.
To prevent suicide you want to address the misery that causes people to feel suicidal, and since women report similar levels of misery we need to give them some focus, and that focus is currently weak in research and prevention efforts.