There's Something Absolutely Wrong with what we do to Boys...

[C0ckney]

Okay, I really can't keep posting long, substantive responses; I have too many real responsibilities that I can't neglect. So, C0ckney: my short answer is that I don't really believe in moral progress. I haven't read Pinker, but I side against him with another guy I haven't read, Thucydides. Civility, decency and charity are all wonderful things, but they're all terribly frail and evanescent, built up over many years and pulled down overnight. Empathy, in particular, is a luxury of the well-to-do. Or so I think. I think that's most of what I was trying to get at. Sorry I can't continue the discussion, but I've got to wean myself off epic arguments.

fair enough. reasonable people can agree to disagree. it's was nice to have the discussion with you in any case.

[C0ckney]

by the way, i notice that al hasn't returned to defend the ridiculous bull**** he posted at the start of this thread.

[Ban Kenobi]

I'm not saying it's due to the decline in machismo. But one cause is the lack of status and respect for men who have low income, unemployed and divorced. Of course it's always been the case. What's different now is the media. One example is when a man has sex with his students he's labeled a rapist and we see a mug shot. When a women has sex with a student she achieves rockstar status and we see a glamour shot. Things changed in the sixties when the tv industry discovered that women enjoy watching people bash men. Now the common belief is that women HAVE problems and mdn ARE problems, which is what we see here with some people saying just "man up."

When a woman has sex with a student she loses her job and goes to jail.

[Guynemer]

Things are obviously worse in many ways for young men than they were in 1950.

For gay and effeminate men?

[Guynemer]

Canada and the US are very similar culturally, with differences for region and laws. That paper claiming that this is an issue in Aus, NZ, and Western Europe should be an additional alarm bell, but I see you've already dismissed that out of hand as well.

How the crikey **** did I dismiss something out of hand? I explained how that is a terrible metric.

What the hell else are young people going to die from? Heart disease? COPD? Lung cancer? No. The reason suicide is one of the leading causes of death in young people is because almost nothing else is going to kill them.

Suicide rates are higher for the middle-aged, but it is not one of the leading causes of death, because they DO die of heart disease, COPD, lung cancer, etc.

[Kidlicious]

When a woman has sex with a student she loses her job and goes to jail.

She losses her job but usually doesn't serve jail time.

[notyoueither]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence#Suicide

Maybe the notion that guns are a factor in suicide isn't so stupid after all.

A factor, yes. A cause, no.

[notyoueither]

How the crikey **** did I dismiss something out of hand? I explained how that is a terrible metric.

What the hell else are young people going to die from? Heart disease? COPD? Lung cancer? No. The reason suicide is one of the leading causes of death in young people is because almost nothing else is going to kill them.

Suicide rates are higher for the middle-aged, but it is not one of the leading causes of death, because they DO die of heart disease, COPD, lung cancer, etc.

That would be convincing, however the rates are dramatically higher than they were in the middle of the last century.

Somehow I'm doubting you'd be so blaze about a cause of death increasing by over a factor of two due to any other cause.

[notyoueither]

Even if you can establish that suicide rates have gone up, how do you guys plan to prove a link between them and the decline of machismo?

Decline?

[Guynemer]

That would be convincing, however the rates are dramatically higher than they were in the middle of the last century.

Somehow I'm doubting you'd be so blaze about a cause of death increasing by over a factor of two due to any other cause.

I don't know why it is more frequent than 50 years ago; I don't know why it is less frequent than 20 years ago. My point is that there is no reason to think it has anything to do with how boys are raised in regards to masculinity.

[notyoueither]

Really?

Divorce seems to have a large impact. How we raise people to view relationships, their place in them, and what to do when they aren't working would seem to me to be kind of important.

http://www.nber.org/chapters/c10690.pdf

pg 48 of the pdf

if one takes the increase in divorce rates over time in consid-
eration, one can explain as much as two-thirds of the increase in youth
suicide

It seems to me that socialisation of men, the role of men in families, and what happens when families break up would be important things to look at.

[KrazyHorse]

That sounds like a pirates/global warming type of analysis...

[notyoueither]

Maybe, but the divorce rate and youth suicide rate have correlated since the late '40s.

[Ban Kenobi]

Are we blaming divorce on men thinking they're supposed to be breadwinners? That seems like a bit of a stretch.

[notyoueither]

I think men and women have to adjust to realities that have changed for all of us.

I think boys and young men need to be socialised differently. Expressing themselves shouldn't be so hard to do. The paper goes into the effect on happiness for youngsters when their parents get divorced. Girls may talk about it to someone, boys not so much.

I think that we have to consider the father remaining part of the children's lives the norm, and not the exception.

I think it's really complicated, but a lot has to do with men facing changed circumstances and a lack of adjustment to that by men, women and society at large.