Suicide now biggest killer of teenage girls worldwide

[grimbletart]

//www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-health/11549954/Teen-girls-Suicide-kills-more-young-women-than-anything.-Heres-why.html

We are used in FWR to men pointing out the terrible toll of suicide on males and we are quick to agree it is disturbing and saddening and the high rates are also acknowledged in the article above.

What I wasn't aware of was that suicide is the biggest killer of teenage girls worldwide (although I did already know the figures were extraordinarily high in South East Asia/China, where female suicides is higher than male).

In Europe the rate of suicide among girls/young women aged 15-19 is 6.15 per 100,000 and globally it is 11.73. In south east Asia it is 27.92.

A Childline supervisor talks about the relentless pressure on girls in the West and a teenager who tried to kill herself aged 13 talks about the relentless pressure of porn and the control it is exerting. She also describes the pressures of online media e.g. the Kardashians and their waist-slimming corsets as an example of the the insecurity it causes among girls.

In Asia the suicide rate is fuelled by cultural restrictions etc. in girls and financial insecurities in boys.

i know it is an extremely complex issue and there is no one single cause for male or female suicide, but I really wish we could do something more about getting rid of porn (which I believe is neither use nor ornament) and the celeb/mag culture (ditto, neither use nor ornament). I really hate the idea that it is a freedom of speech issue and the way so many think it is mature or ''cool' to shrug it off - we are sleepwalking into a disaster for our daughters and our sons.

[YonicScrewdriver]

How sad.

[WhirlpoolGalaxyM51]

Interesting article.

Had to stop reading the comments due to blood pressure. I find it depressing how many people just don't give a fuck about the lives (or deaths) of women and girls around the world.

[YonicScrewdriver]

"Young brides, says Suzanne Petroni, “are very often taken away from their peers. They're subjected to early and unwanted sex,".."

I wish she had used the word rape. Because that's what unwanted sex is.

[OddBoots]

The comments have me rolling my eyes too, particularly then there is a comment that we need to look a the men and boys taken by violence without actually mentioning which is the main group inflicting the violence.

[WhirlpoolGalaxyM51]

YY I was a bit @ the unwanted sex thing as well. This happens a lot though doesn't it. Like with the schoolgirls in Africa there was talk of "forced marriages" which of course translates to rape. However where marriage is involved, it seems people are generally still much less able to bring themselves to use the R word than when the same actions are carried out and there is no marriage involved. I suspect it takes a while to shift - rape in marriage hasn't even been illegal in the UK that long in the scheme of things and in many countries is still either actually legal, or legal in practice.

[YonicScrewdriver]

I suspect that it's not used where it isn't a crime in those countries _

[WhirlpoolGalaxyM51]

OddBoots YY I thought right and what are YOU doing to help with male violence on men around the world? Are you volunteering in any inner cities in the UK? Donating to groups in the Americas who try to deal with gang violence? Raising awareness of boys forced into being child soldiers?

Or do you just bring these things up when you want women to STFU?

[WhirlpoolGalaxyM51]

Actually I don't know if rape in marriage is actually legal in many countries. I know it is in some, and of course in many nothing would be done about it even if it is against the law.

[LassUnparalleled]

I said in another thread but it wasn't followed up (may be it was a stupid comment) but in relation to porn it is a terrible, terrible shame that in the 70s and 80s the anti- porn crusaders were such idiots.

You had Whitehouse and Lord Longford , she especially arguing against "permissiveness" from a right - wing. homophobic Christian perspective.

Of course no-one paid the slightest attention to them or wanted to be allied with them but they made valid points that porn is degrading, exploitative and dehumanising.

Their strident, unreasonable , narrow-minded attitude helped to promote rather than control porn.

[WhirlpoolGalaxyM51]

Thing is I read the comments and I feel that from some men there is a certain amount of glee, or at least no concern at all, that awful things are being done to girls and women, and that bothers me. Am I imagining that tone from some commenters in these types of stories?

[YonicScrewdriver]

Do you think that made a difference, Lass? IIRC there was some mockery when both Dworkin and a right wing US church were speaking out against a brithel/strip club (forgotten which) - as in "look at the allies the feminist is keeping"

[caroldecker]

Does the difference between continents suggest that Western values (including porn) are actually better for young women than non-western values even if they are damaging?
Should we not put more pressure on countries to adopt Western values?

[LassUnparalleled]

Yonic I see Dworkin and Whitehouse as part of the same problem. Both were unattractive, (in every sense of the word) unappealing dogmatists. They would not have agreed with each other (except that porn was bad but the journey to that point startedfrom a very different point)

Neither were easy to like. Especially when you had Greer talking about how everyone watched Animal Farm on video and it's no big deal.

The unholy alliance argument of feminism and right-wing religion is of course well rehearsed - we get it on here every time legalisation of prostitution is discussed.

It is a fine line for anyone who is anti-porn to tread. I can rationalise the support from religious groups in a couple of ways.

Firstly many religious groups and individuals are simply decent people so why would we not be allies in this common cause?

Secondly whilst porn is primarily anti-woman it ultimately degrades and dehumanises society. Its existence is bad for society as a whole.

[YonicScrewdriver]

Err, why not do both?

Older men marrying (and raping ie having sex without the consent of) girls in their early teens leading those girls to kill themselves to escape = bad.

Uk teenage girls killing themselves because their bodies are negatively compared to those in porn = bad

[YonicScrewdriver]

That was to carol!

[YonicScrewdriver]

"Secondly whilst porn is primarily anti-woman it ultimately degrades and dehumanises society. Its existence is bad for society as a whole."

Yes I agree with you there.

[Ennuid]

Saying violence against men is irrelevant because men are the ones doing it in the first place is like saying girls committing suicide is women's fault because they are overwhelmingly the culprits of anything to do with female ''shaming'' (being fat, sexual behaviour, not having the right make up, clothes, bag, shoes, being a sahm or a wohm etc etc). Pick up any woman's mag, it is pure toxicity.

Having lived in 3 completely different countries and cultures, I can tell you that women are by far the most stringent in enforcing and restricting women's gender roles (many times at sub-atomic levels), especially when talking about young girls. It is women who perform FGM, pull the screaming kidnapped bride from the car by her arms and legs, tell their daughters that the men should never have to lift a finger when it comes to housework, that they should just ignore his affairs, that getting punched once in a while is not divorce worthy, that she shouldn't expect her husband to be faithful if she doesn't put out or gets fat... There's a saying in my country that goes something like ''A woman who hasn't been beaten is like a house who hasn't been swept.'' Guess who uses that saying as ''ancient wisdom'' 9 out of 10 times? Yes, women. Oh and the victim blaming from women when it comes to rape... let me tell you, it makes the UK look like some sort of narnianic paradise.

This isn't about ''us vs them'' or getting one up on the men, it's about trying to understand and then help young girls (and boys).

[WhirlpoolGalaxyM51]

Ennuid the thing about the violence against males was raised by OddBoots specifically about some of the comments on the article linked. Where people have looked at an article in the Women's Health section, under the Women section, in a paper, and which is headed "Suicide is now the biggest killer of teenage girls worldwide. Here's why" and complained that it does not give enough attention to violence committed against men and some question (basically) whether such an article should be published when the problem for men is worse. These commentators aren't saying male violence / gender roles are a problem for both males and females let's sort it out together they are just saying people should STFU about problems faced by girls & women.

I agree with the rest of your post though.

[WhirlpoolGalaxyM51]

Although sorry i say "I agree with the rest of your post" in that yes of course women can and do often harshly impose the rules of the society they are in.

It is incorrect to say that women are inflicting most of the violence though. Men are not blameless when it comes to absusing females, around the world. Obviously.

[YonicScrewdriver]

"It is incorrect to say that women are inflicting most of the violence though. Men are not blameless when it comes to absusing females, around the world. Obviously."

Yup.

[PuffinsAreFictitious]

Interesting Ennuid.

Any thoughts as to why those women do what they do?

[TeiTetua]

I'm finding the article frustrating because it doesn't make it easy to compare the suicide rates of girls and boys. Among adults, we know that men are far more likely to kill themselves, but women make more attempts at suicide--if failed suicide attempts are entirely realistic, which is hard to say.

This isn't another "What about the men" comment. If girls and boys commit suicide in about the same numbers, the concern should be "Too many young people are killing themselves". But even then, if the numbers were similar the causes might still be different, and it would be worth looking at female and male suicide differently. But just singling out girls, as the article does, makes it seem as though "Girls have to be protected" when boys can be left to take their lumps and bumps.

The suicide rate in Asia is something else. Of course we can't say (as westerners used to feel free to say) that our way of life is better than theirs. But one can't help linking the rate of suicide among young women there with sex-selective abortion and female infanticide. It looks like a pretty deep-seated sense that women aren't welcome.

[YonicScrewdriver]

Tei, I think the main point of the article is the frequency of different causes of death for teenage girls and it being surprising that suicide is now the most frequent.

[TeiTetua]

I get you, but if all causes of death are infrequent, maybe that doesn't say much. In fact it is true that the death rate from one of the larger killers in the past, effects of pregnancy/childbirth, has fallen. Could it be like saying "The tide is down, and now that rock is bigger?"

[WhirlpoolGalaxyM51]

Yes there is that, the reduction in maternal mortality amongst this age group is good news indeed.