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this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
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Afaik suicide attempt rates are 2-3x more common in women than men. Men are just more likely to choose methods that are more deadly.
Not to belittle it on either side but I do wonder what causes that disparity. Is it that men plan it more thoroughly or have access to more dangerous methods? Do women choose methods that, unintentional or not, can be backed out of more easily? Are women more likely to report a failed attempt than men? If that 2-3x factor is true, then why don't we see similar numbers of idk completion? I hesitate to say success because it is very much not a success to commit suicide, there are always other options, even if they're not perfect.
I've heard the claims that women generally opt for less effective methods because they're more likely to want to leave an opportunity to back out, or try to avoid leaving a messy corpse. I have not data here, these are simply claims I've heard.
I've heard the latter, as in even in death women are thinking about others.
Anecdotally, I've heard that almost universally. Every woman or girl I know who has chosen not to commit suicide, someone having to find their corpse factored highly in their reasons.
Someone being there to find them in the first place might be a factor in all this.
When you commit suicide your corpse doesn't just disappear after a few days. Somebody has to find it sooner or later, whether that's the paramedics/police or someone else. And yes, seeing someone's corpse after they committed suicide is very traumatic, even to emergency responders
In part the reasons are perpetrated by media and culture. If you go back to the medieval period records men and women died at about the same rate and they both used predominantly drowning and hanging as method.
Think about the dramatization of suicide for a hot minute and poison shows up as having this stigma of being a woman's weapon or the "easy way out" more often than not the dramatic gut punch for men has been stuff like a gun to the head, hanging, jumping off a tall something... Something violent and effective and "brave" for lack of a better term. Certain types of death are coded as "emasculating" and those types of death are generally easier to rescue someone from because of the length of time between making the decision and actual death.
The deaths of women (at least provided they are not villians) in media are more often played up for gore and empathy when they are violently murdered but played down when it comes to suicide. Either the type used is quiet and gives the illusion of the peaceful end of quiet despair, it happens off screen or the camera angle changes to soften the impact. There is no comparative "unwomanly" way to die. This is in part because at some level it hits different. Executioners in women's prisons have reported that it effected them way more and caused mental traumas. People who make fiction use this to manipulate the way you're supposed to feel.
At some level with enough iteration you create expectations of what suicides are supposed to look like based on their individual thematic meanings... Which are coded by gender.
Are there any methods that are available to men that aren't available to women?
Women are more likely to opt for "clean" methods to avoid leaving a mess for grieving family. Paracetamol overdose, poisons, natural gas. For whatever reason (and anecdotally I can blame the way women are socialised to put others first by valuing "feminine" traits of caring and nurturing) women will go for a slower, even more painful method if it means less trauma for those finding the body. Women often have an existing support network that "failed" them, and they don't want that support network to feel guilty, so making their death seem "peaceful" plays into the suicide plan.
Men are more likely to go for methods that are quick and effective because the ultimate goal is to die. Men don't have that same support network, there was nobody there to "fail" these men, they often had no one in the first place, so there's not as much consideration for what the method of death may mean for those left behind. Men are more likely to jump in front of trains or shoot themselves.
The support network plays into this as well, because women often have other people, they may accidentally let on that something has changed in their lives suicide motivation. Even a simple "you're a great friend, thank you for being there" text could send a red flag and women are more likely to have paramedics called by a suspicious friend or family member.
Because men often don't have anyone, they don't raise any red flags, so their attempts have no external intervention.
That's a lot of good info, but it sounds like the short answer to my question is "no?"
Sorry, I replied to the wrong level in that comment thread and in doing so didn't answer your question at all because I wasn't thinking about your question specifically.
Women have all the same options as men, but because of the way women are socialised those options seem unfavourable.
Do you think the inverse is also true? That men are socialized in a way that makes certain options seem unfavorable? For example, men are far less likely to pick methods that give other people a chance to intervene.
Now I'll be thinking about suicide by penis all night.
Personally, I think it comes down to two things. The first has to do with the root causes of the suicidality. If what you have is severe, can-barely-get-out-of-bed depression, you're more likely to choose a more passive and less likely to succeed method like swallowing the pills you currently have in your medicine cabinet. If one of your root causes is anger, then you're more likely to choose a more active method like leaving the house and finding a tall building.
And the second is that men are twice as likely to own a firearm.
Men prefer guns and women prefer pills. The study from back in the day . ... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11079640/