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that drives thousands of them to death

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Suicide is the leading cause of death of British men under 50 years of age. Over a quarter (26%) of men who die between the ages of 20 and 34 take their own lives, and 13% of deaths among men aged 35 to 49 are self-inflicted. The figures for women are 13% and 5% respectively.
The state is responsible – through its actions and inactions – for many of the crises that lead men to kill themselves. As a class, men have long suffered high levels of reactive depression, the form brought on by distressing life events. This is driving the relentlessly high male suicide rate, rather than long-term mental health issues.
In 2014 the government published a report, Preventing suicide in England: First Annual Report on the Cross-government Outcomes Strategy to Save Lives. Virtually no interest (let alone concern) is expressed in the report at the remarkably high rate of suicide among men.
When politicians are pressed on the male suicide rate, they generally (and callously) attribute the problem to men's disinclination to seek help for mental health issues in times of crisis. Politicians are victim-blaming.
They know – or should know – the "mental health issue" is generally reactive depression and all too often the only support available to men is talking, which won't help those denied access to children after family breakdowns, or those denied support as victims of domestic violence, or who who are homeless...
The male:female suicide rate differential was 1.7:1 in 1983 and steadily rose over the subsequent 30 years, reaching 3.5:1 in 2013. The prime reason was a steep decline in the number of women committing suicide. Nobody has suggested there was a major improvement in women's mental health over the period.
Disadvantaging of males begins at an early age. Life outcomes for boys deprived of a father active in their lives tend to be poor and the state has long been the architect of the destruction of the nuclear family.
About two-thirds of secondary school teachers are women and state schools are failing large numbers of boys. One in four boys is labelled as having special educational needs.
William Collins, an important blogger on men's issues, has suggested female teachers often give girls preferential treatment in school, for example by giving them higher grades for the same quality of work. This may be why so many boys are demotivated at school; today, three out of five university students are female and 70% of medical students are women.
Collins has written about the "gender education gap", which emerged after the introduction of continuous assessment by teachers in 1987-88. The state education system is permanently blighting many boys' lives.
Huge amounts of taxpayers' money has been spent over decades 'encouraging' women into traditionally male-dominated professions, notably those relating to STEMM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine). The state is spending £30m "encouraging" women into engineering alone. Female engineering MSc students at Brunel are entitled to sponsorship of £22,750 denied to their male colleagues.
Taxpayers' money is not being spent "encouraging" men into female-dominated professions, although male unemployment has long been higher than female unemployment, and unemployment is known to be a major driver of male suicide, but not female suicide.
Two thirds of public sector employees are women, yet the Equality Act 2010 is designed to prioritise females over males in recruitment and promotion terms. It's termed "positive action" in the Act but it's positive discrimination in all but name.
The Athena SWAN initiative is designed to preference women over men in appointments to research posts in STEMM subjects. This is a state-funded assault on men wishing to pursue scientific careers.
Following divorce, the suicide rate of men is nine times higher than the suicide rate of women. This is sometimes the result of financial devastation, but more often the result of denial of access to children.
The link between denying fathers access to children and reactive depression – and therefore suicide – is an obvious one. When in opposition, politicians promise fathers' rights groups they will resolve the problem once in office but renege on the promise once in power.
Intimate partner violence
My party, Justice for Men and Boys (J4MB) recently published a study by renowned US psychologist Martin Fiebert showing women are often as physically aggressive as men towards opposite-sex intimate partners, or more aggressive.
Yet some radical feminists will have you believe men use intimate partner violence (IPV) - or the threat of it - to control women as a class. This theory has long been discredited, most recently by British researchers Dr Elizabeth Bates and Dr Nicola Graham-Kevan.
J4MB submitted a 154-page report to the Home Office concerning the anti-male bias of public bodies and politicians with respect to IPV. This evidence is supported by an American study, which reported that when IPV-related suicides are added to IPV-related homicides, more men than women die as a result of IPV.
For more proof, look at the Mankind Initiative, the most prominent charity in the UK supporting male victims of IPV. The charity reports there are over 7,000 places in refuges in the UK for women and children, and 17 for men.
Men are less likely than women to report being victims of IPV and far less likely to have their partners charged with the offence. Men are reluctant to leave violent partners, often because they're concerned their children would be at additional risk and they'd never see them again (both are reasonable assumptions in many cases).
If abused men approach their local authority, they're told that if they leave their houses they'll be considered "intentionally homeless" and be denied social housing. IPV is a major route into homelessness for men and 87% of the "street homeless" are men. The average age of death of a homeless person is 47, as opposed to 77 for non-homeless people.
The criminal justice system is particularly brutal towards men and this appears to lead many to suicide. There are over 80,000 men in British prisons, and fewer than 4,000 women. Ministers talk only of the "need" to reduce the number of female prisoners. William Collins has calculated that if male criminals were treated as leniently as female criminals, 68,000 men currently in British prisons wouldn't be there.
And who is funding the state that is assaulting the human rights of men and boys? Men, in the main, who pay 72% of income tax.


https://uk.news.yahoo.com/male-suicide-scandal-uk-men-paying-system-drives-143116878.html#nprbJTD
It's not just in the US. You'll find exactly the same problems in the US, in Canada, in Australia, probably in a lot of European countries.

And I know people are going to whine and I hate to say it but you can thank feminism for most of that. It was feminism that drove men away from children and continues, to this day, to fight against any and all co-parenting bills even though it's been proven that it's beneficial for the child. It's feminism that continues to demand and steer huge amounts of government funding towards female-only scholarships and educational programs while continually crying that it's never enough and more is "only fair". It's feminism that's created quotas for women in STEMM fields which often denies men more qualified the job. It's feminism that's focused on the mental health and issues of women and sucked up all the funding there while leaving men out. It's feminism that's created numerous shelters and social aid programs for homeless women, even though men make up the far far majority of homeless, while leaving men completely out. It's women that have pushed men out of education almost entirely at this point. A lot of kids are lucky to see their first male teacher before high school these days.

These really are serious problems and it's awful that no one is talking about it and no one is even trying to do anything about it. neutral But any time you try to the feminist establishment that put all these things in place immediately rises up to protect it's interests and starts hammering you down insisting that you're a misogynist for wanting more male teachers or a domestic violence apologist for wanting male shelters or that you're a disgrace to your gender (if female) and a traitor for putting your money and energy into helping men instead of into NOW or Anita or Lacey's latest campaign against...tampons or butter or the colour green or whatever it is they're crusading against this week.

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They Came to Kill GSK
Shame that Men's Rights groups idea of fixing this state of affairs is to proclaim women as scum, date women from Russia/Middle East/Asia, and...well, that's it.


Maybe if they worked to correct the cultural perception that to be a 'real' man you have to, if I may use the term "Conceal don't feel" and that only inferior 'gay' guys talk about their feelings and seek help, it would improve their lot better than trying to bash feminism at every given turn.

Maybe if we stopped perpetuating this image that men see marriage and fatherhood as traps, more people would support fatherhood bills so long as they don't become traps for mothers.
They Came to Kill GSK

Problem is, the MRA's idea of fixing this is just to demonize women, demonize men who don't fall into their Alpha As ******** mold, and go on sex tours in Russia. Not exactly productive there.


No, and there aren't enough MRAs anyway even if 100% of MRAs were effective little busy bees. Feminists have a huge huge huge huge huge lobby group. NOW alone has over 500,000 members and is a multi-million dollar organization and that is just one of thousands of feminist groups. Planned Parenthood is probably 100x bigger. They contribute thousands if not millions of dollars to political campaigns. Look at how hard PP pushed Wendy Davis in Texas and got busloads of people from outside Texas to come in to help with her filibuster.

Whatever happens it's going to take far more than MRAs. It has to be a grassroots from a myriad of people.

And men are going to have to work for it. A lot of men want it, from what I've heard. They want things to improve but they're afraid to speak up. They don't want to be labelled a misogynist or accused of rape or threatened or all the crazy things feminists do to people who annoy them. And I get it, I do. But unfortunately I don't know any civil rights movement that's succeeded when the object wanting rights stands completely back, hands off and a completely unrelated party campaigns for them. It just doesn't work. This isn't something people can do for men without a very large contribution from men and right now even though I've talked about this with a lot of men, I have yet to personally meet any that seem willing to "risk it". They're accepting less rights and sub-par treatment out of fear. Hopefully more men will eventually have had enough and stand up and say it, "Enough is enough." and start to fight back and get this feminist bullshit put back in its place and ended and take back the rights it really has stolen from them.
They Came to Kill GSK


So how do you reconcile all this with the fact that the vast majority of people still in power are men?


The whole "but..but...men are in charge" response is ridiculous and only shows that the person talking has no clue and probably shouldn't be discussing politics at all, ever.

It's based on the completely false notion that gender representation in politics equates to better outcomes for that gender. It has no bearing at all in reality. Men do not automatically support other men when they come to power, nor do women. I would hope by now that most people realize that politicians support themselves and their causes and essentially nothing else. They pander to whoever gives them the most money and will get them the most votes.

The whole "in charge" argument is flawed secondly because "in charge" is such a vague term that it might as well not be used. Technically the one school trustee who is male is "in charge", compared to the rest of us, yet he couldn't get one single motion he wanted passed during his entire term. Wow, such power! Stand back everyone! Male in charge! He's going to conquer the world. You can just feel it radiating off him. My MLA is male, yet again, can barely get anything done. There's checks and balances both have to go through and even though they themselves are elected and male, the checks and balances include many women.

In many places the highest power is female so the idea of "in charge" becomes even more meaningless. The most powerful person in my province is our female Premier. Every single other person, all other elected "in power" males, are beneath her power-wise. She's also a fantastic example of how stupid the notion that somehow electing a woman will benefit women. She cares not for any woman and has actually alienated the largest and most female-dominated unions. The decisions she's made have affected women negatively by and large more than men.

Lastly, by promoting the idea that gender representation is essentially the measure of success or equality in politics you basically kill democracy. Women are free to vote for male candidates and men are free to vote for female candidates. By insisting on gender representation you're basically pushing for an unofficial female quota in politics based on nothing but their genitalia. Or minimizing the importance of voting for a candidate based on their platform and beliefs and track record. That is the antithesis to democracy. People need to drop this idea that we "need more women in power/in politics". No, we don't. We need ONLY the people who are democratically elected by the people. If 100% of them are male, so be it. More women vote than men so clearly women are fine with it and don't need other people showing up later to tell them that their votes were wrong or trying to undo their democratically elected male candidate to shove a female in because "we need female representation y'all!"

That is how I'm fine with men "in power".

Quote:
Also, you act like Anti-Feminists don't have their own huge lobby groups or spokesmen. Rush Limbaugh doesn't ring a bell? The entire talk radio cabal that'll happily light into feminists with no fear?


You do realize that feminism and the problems it brings exists outside the US right? Not many Canadians, Brits, Australians listen to Limbaugh or care what he does. That's like me saying that what Jian Ghomeshi did somehow impacts people living in Texas or what Ian Hanomansing said holds power in Florida.
They Came to Kill GSK
Rhianna
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Alright, alright, fairly logical, can't argue too much with that. I don't even believe in the Patriarchy notion myself.

Now, what do you propose, what's your endgame?


My end game would be things to be more equal for men. Ultimately people have to pick a cause and hopefully they stick with it.

Personally I focus on one specific area; adoption. It's an area where men are completely devastated and as an adoptee myself, an issue I'm personally touched by. I've donated money to a number of fathers fighting to get their child that was secretly placed for adoption by the mother back. Also to a couple of other small father's rights groups and working more generally for more adoptee rights and more ethical adoptions.

I can't really propose anything more than for people to be more aware of what's going on and more empathetic towards men. These are some absolutely horrendous issues that men are facing and they're facing it pretty much alone. While women are given millions of dollars and government attention and charities to handle almost all our issues, men get nothing and when it comes to things like suicide there's no coming back from that. We really need to do better. It might be a stranger today, but in a couple decades it could be your son that needs help or kills himself because his kids are stolen from him or he's buried in lifelong debt because of the ridiculous child support laws.
They Came to Kill GSK


Well, you're miles past the MRA's already, if that means anything to you.

Also, you do realize you'll have to fight traditionalists about gender to solve some of these, right?


I only wish. Right now we're fighting pretty much the entire state of Utah (notorious for unethical / quasi illegal 'quickie' adoptions and defrauding fathers of their kids), the LDS church (who basically owns all adoption in the state), an organization of adoption attorneys. A couple years ago we were fighting the Governors of two states, a PR company with a seemingly endless bank account and a lawyer with a relationship to a SCOTUS Judge (neither of whom removed themselves for the conflict of interest).

A few shrieky traditionalists don't phase me after all that. rofl

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Rhianna
They Came to Kill GSK


So how do you reconcile all this with the fact that the vast majority of people still in power are men?


The whole "but..but...men are in charge" response is ridiculous and only shows that the person talking has no clue and probably shouldn't be discussing politics at all, ever.

It's based on the completely false notion that gender representation in politics equates to better outcomes for that gender. It has no bearing at all in reality. Men do not automatically support other men when they come to power, nor do women. I would hope by now that most people realize that politicians support themselves and their causes and essentially nothing else. They pander to whoever gives them the most money and will get them the most votes.

The whole "in charge" argument is flawed secondly because "in charge" is such a vague term that it might as well not be used. Technically the one school trustee who is male is "in charge", compared to the rest of us, yet he couldn't get one single motion he wanted passed during his entire term. Wow, such power! Stand back everyone! Male in charge! He's going to conquer the world. You can just feel it radiating off him. My MLA is male, yet again, can barely get anything done. There's checks and balances both have to go through and even though they themselves are elected and male, the checks and balances include many women.

In many places the highest power is female so the idea of "in charge" becomes even more meaningless. The most powerful person in my province is our female Premier. Every single other person, all other elected "in power" males, are beneath her power-wise. She's also a fantastic example of how stupid the notion that somehow electing a woman will benefit women. She cares not for any woman and has actually alienated the largest and most female-dominated unions. The decisions she's made have affected women negatively by and large more than men.

Lastly, by promoting the idea that gender representation is essentially the measure of success or equality in politics you basically kill democracy. Women are free to vote for male candidates and men are free to vote for female candidates. By insisting on gender representation you're basically pushing for an unofficial female quota in politics based on nothing but their genitalia. Or minimizing the importance of voting for a candidate based on their platform and beliefs and track record. That is the antithesis to democracy. People need to drop this idea that we "need more women in power/in politics". No, we don't. We need ONLY the people who are democratically elected by the people. If 100% of them are male, so be it. More women vote than men so clearly women are fine with it and don't need other people showing up later to tell them that their votes were wrong or trying to undo their democratically elected male candidate to shove a female in because "we need female representation y'all!"

That is how I'm fine with men "in power".

Quote:
Also, you act like Anti-Feminists don't have their own huge lobby groups or spokesmen. Rush Limbaugh doesn't ring a bell? The entire talk radio cabal that'll happily light into feminists with no fear?


You do realize that feminism and the problems it brings exists outside the US right? Not many Canadians, Brits, Australians listen to Limbaugh or care what he does. That's like me saying that what Jian Ghomeshi did somehow impacts people living in Texas or what Ian Hanomansing said holds power in Florida.


Men are the ones in power...and not just in politics. Which counts for very little in the US anyway since corporations and billionaires own most of the politicians anyway. Men are in power in corporations and all manner of organizations to a significantly greater degree than women.

Also, the education argument doesn't work. Yes, women tend to make up the larger percentage of college students. There are many reasons for this and some of these need to be addressed. But the fact remains that even though women do very well in school and college that doesn't translate to higher level/pay positions.

There are situations where men are discriminated against. I agree with that. But it's not as dire as you make it out to be and areas where women are still discriminated against are greater. Both need to be addressed. True equality needs to be the goal, as it is with traditional feminists. The people you're railing against are radical feminists...who are just crazy, frankly.
Saless
Men are the ones in power...and not just in politics. Which counts for very little in the US anyway since corporations and billionaires own most of the politicians anyway. Men are in power in corporations and all manner of organizations to a significantly greater degree than women.


My point remains the same. The gender of the person in power is irrelevant. You think the Koch's go easier on men because they share a gender? Or the CEO at Apple? No. People need to stop fighting among themselves and realize that our only actual enemy is class-based. The rich vs the poor. It always has been. The poor of both genders suffer.

Saless
Also, the education argument doesn't work. Yes, women tend to make up the larger percentage of college students. There are many reasons for this and some of these need to be addressed. But the fact remains that even though women do very well in school and college that doesn't translate to higher level/pay positions.


They succeed in every level from kindergarten through university at greater rates than boys and men at this point. Females graduate from high school at higher numbers because of this male educational disenfranchisement. Women whine that society makes it so that girls don't do as well in math and sometimes science but society makes it so that boys don't do as well in all other subjects. The entire system of schooling has been developed to favour girls over boys. Women struggle in one subject and it's a national crisis. Boys struggle in 5, 6, 7 subjects, drop out at much higher rates and never finish their high school education at much higher rates and no one cares.

As for pay, that's again been discussed ad nauseum as part of "wage gap" discussions. Women choose to go into a lot of lower-paying fields. You aren't going to end up with a high-paying job with a daycare degree, women's studies, even things like psychology or social work. Men go into STEMM and trades that lead to better pay and tend to be more in-demand. Women often choose to trade a higher wage for a more flexible schedule, for a job closer to home, for better benefits. Why should those choices be downed or treated as wrong or problematic by someone who doesn't even know them later on?


Saless
There are situations where men are discriminated against. I agree with that. But it's not as dire as you make it out to be and areas where women are still discriminated against are greater.


No, when we're discussing suicide there is nothing greater than that. There is no coming back from that. That is the end of that person forever. The fact that women may not get a pay raise is not greater than the epidemic of men committing suicide. I'm going to guess that you're a feminist since you're kowtowing the "Women's suffering is always greater!!" line.

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