A 17 year old boy from my area went up into the woods a couple of days ago with three guns. The search party found his frozen body the next day. He didn't die from exposure but bled to death from a self-inflicted gun shot wound.

Several months ago, a neighbor's son, also 17 years old, got into a fight with his older brother, went downstairs and shot himself in the head in his closet.

About a year and a half ago, another neighbor's son got in a fight with his parents and jumped out of the car as it was still in motion. The car wasn't going very fast, but his foot got caught and he was dragged across the pavement. Those few seconds from the time he jumped and his parents were able to stop the car cost him his life.

A man I knew, a really good, nice man, a kind and devoted father, son and husband, hung himself some months back when his business failed.

And a very, very dear friend of mine, despaired by hurts and losses he could no longer stand to bear, tried to kill himself recently.



Everywhere I look I see the deaths and blood of men.....the tragic and untimely demises of beautiful, precious lives.

Incidentally, I don't live in some poverty stricken area where hopelessness and despair are so thick that they hang palpable in the air. I live in a conservative, religious, small town, middle class America, where all our kids know they can look forward to going to college should they choose, where we still eat dinners as a family at night and we know each and every one of our neighbors and their children by name.

Yet, even here, we can't stop our boys from dying tragic, unnecessary deaths. We can't infuse them with the same hope and self-worth that we've managed to instill in our daughters. Our daughters aren't dying. Our daughters aren't going out into the woods and putting guns to their heads.

No matter how much love and support we give our boys, we can't stand as a barrier and protect them from the constant barrage of negative, anti-male stereotypes. We can't protect their hearts and minds from the pain and disillusionment they're sure to find in a world that simply doesn't care about them any further than as a means to an ends; a way to move forth industry, bodies to send to war to further political causes, or, should they fail to prove constructive, to fill our jails.

From ages 10 to 14, the rate of suicide among boys is twice as high as among girls. From ages 15 to 19, four times as high and from ages 20 to 24, six times as high.

Where are our emergency measures to combat this crisis? Where are the commissions, the funding, the programs and the public concern?

William S. Pollack, the director of the Centers for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School has noted, "There’s no doubt that in relation to suicide, boys and young men are in a crisis," said Pollack. "And almost nothing has been done to remediate it from the gender perspective."

So while we spend millions on programs empowering and furthering the interests of women and girls, hardly a finger has been raised or a dime spent to help boys and men that are in crisis. Instead, we devote our time and resources to telling boys that they are all potential abusers, rapists and murderers......frightening, violent things that women and children need to be protected from.

In 2005, in the U.S., 25,907 men killed themselves. For perspective, that is roughly 21 times the number of women who were killed by intimate partners in the U.S. in the same year.

Because of the 1200 or so women who are killed by their partners each year, we have massive campaigns addressing violence against women.

What do we have to address the 25,907 lives of men that were ended needlessly? Again I ask, where are the commissions, the funding, the programs and the public concern?

Why do we stand idly by while our boys and men flounder in emotional pain, despair and hopelessness?

Life is precious and I am heartbroken and angry for the loss of these lives. I am angry that nothing has been done to address this crisis. I am angry for the growing number of lives that will be lost because they won't be deemed important enough to do anything about.

Why don't we do anything?

Because to do something would mean admitting we've been wrong. It would mean taking a long, painfully honest look at the hatred and disdain that we have so willingly and thoughtlessly infused into our society. It would mean addressing the horrible, destructive neglect and damage that has been wrought upon boys, men, fathers and husbands.....apparently, it's simply easier just to look away.

This time of the year can be especially hard for men who are alone; who have been alienated from the lives of their families and children. We need to remember the worth and value of the lives of men; to remember the little boys and young men who need nurturing, care, kindness and understanding; to remember that the lives of these men and boys are invaluable and irreplacable, Remember how important it is to show that they matter....especially in a world that doesn't.


More...

i just explained why in my post.

they simply don't care , it's in their favor that we die.
we're the common enemy that keeps their cute little world spinning.
nobody cares about us when we're alive and then finally when theres
just little blips in the paper or in the evening news,
all the sudden people go AWWWWWWWWW thats sad.
if they saw that same boy walk down the street alive they would see
EWWWW disgusting , lock the doors!

listen to mozart's requiems and tell me he was a monster
listen to chopin breaking his piano strings in fury and tell me he was a pig.

i think they are just jealous because they more they made us suffer the more
beautiful we become and the more beautiful things we produce.

they will never know what it's like to be angelic

Kim, the problem is that these are just manifestations of something a lot bigger than feminism. The whole Western world has been built on this foundation in the last 50 years.

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/20...ml#readfurther
I was commenting about (neo)liberalism and it's implications there and they have the same root cause as feminism. Yes, women have failed men. I'm not saying that men were perfect throughout history because they weren't, but they created a world that could have offered us a lot of things, provided we would have really wanted equal rights and not just privileges... And both men and women failed their forefathers for destroying what they built and really, if you take a hard look at it, it amounts to betrayal.

What can we do? I have no idea. The whole paradigm needs to be destroyed and the old one to be restored, with slight adaptations. I doubt it will happen - at least without serious events destroying the current one.

At least you live in a nice neighborhood... I hope I will live in one with my family one day...

It will continue, Kim, until more good, kind and concerned voices like yours ring out more and more loudly to drown out those other voices that constantly carp and complain about invented slights against women.

Thank you for a beautifully composed and heartfelt article.

I hope everyone here sends a link to all their friends and to newspapers everywhere.

true , nothing can be salvaged from this system.
it has to be destroyed and rebuilt.

if a man and a woman are trapped in a burning building,
they would die of exhaustion from arguing the gender
of the person who started the fire , before they died in the fire.

the point is the building is on fire , this system is the building
and this system started the fire.
problem reaction solution.
and the people bite every hook that dips into the pond

after 23 years alive i am sick of hearing about it.

send them home to peal symbolic potatoes for another 100 years.
change it all

Very well written article, in particular I like how you compared sucides and dv fatalities. One has to wonder how many of the suicides are as a result of domestic abuse?

Anyone know what the general trends are in the sates for suicide rates?
I've studies the figures here in the UK - female suicides are at an all time low, whereas male suicides have barely reduced at all from their peak. Thus even though there was a four fold difference between the genders the gap and proportion of male to female victims is still increasing.

I have put Simon Anderton, Dadsonair 'Counter' 8964 so far and Dads in Distress ( Tanks to Percy) together on my blog!

I also have Kim's campaign under broken justice too