ITEM A husband whose wife dies e about ten times more likely to commit suicide than a wife whose husband ties.1
ITEM Unemployed men commit suKide at twice the rate of employed men. Among women, there is no difference m the rate of suicide based on whether or not the woman is employed.2
ITEM In the middle of the Great Depression, men were 6S0 percent more likely to commit sucide than women.5
ITEM The suicide rate of adolescent boys has recently increased three times as quickly as the girts’4
ITEM just twenty years ago. young men (between 25 and 34) committed suicide at only twice the rate of young women; today, it is four times the rate. (Men’s rate increased 26 percent women’s rate decreased 33 percent)5
The Items stimulate a range of questions: why has boys’ suicide rate been increasing so much more than girls’ more recently? Why is the loss of love so devastating for men? If unemployment among men leads to suicide, is it at all comparable to rape for a woman? Is female depression the equivalent of male suicide? Why do women attempt suicide more often while men succeed four times as often?6 Why is the "suicide class" also the "successful class"? Is there any possibility that men commit suicide more because we care less — that the "suicide class” is the "unloved class"?
Let’s start with adolescent boys. Why does boys’ suicide rate, but not girls’, increase 25,000 percent as their sex roles become apparent?7