Sexist and dangerous Samaritans ad

I've just seen the longer ad, I'm not impressed. The hectoring tone by cool girl to dowdy girl just rubbed me the wrong way. Add in all the other people she could have gone to for help for angry man and I'm lost as to why the hell they have her talking to him at all.

The Zero Suicide Alliance training cautions against saying things that are likely to make an already-suicidal person feel guilty, because making a depressed person feel worse is counterproductive. Examples include reminding the suicidal person that their family will miss them. I consider "what about the train driver?" to fall into that category.

Please use the Quote button so others can see who to, and the full context of, your reply.

Are you deliberately misreading what I'm saying here?

This whole thread has been about how the world at large views women and how this ad campaign depends upon and feeds the idea that women exist to serve men.

It's not about how any individual woman thinks about herself.

My comment is about how the world sees women, not how I see women.

Given that bullying can drive someone to suicide, it stands to reason that kindness could prevent it.

Part of the issue also is that mental health services are chronically underfunded and understaffed. Campaigns like these ones from Sams and ZSA shift the responsibility for mental health crisis care from the NHS to the general public.

I would want to know what testing it on commuters means.
Did they have a quick look and answer a questionnaire?
Was there free space to think more deeply?
Was there chance to go away and think about it properly and give a more nuanced answer?

I've enjoyed the discussion here. It's given me chance to think about what I could safely do, given that the advert is problematic. This discussion is probably doing more for the potential for supporting someone having a mental health crisis than watching an advert or seeing a poster on its own could.

It's made me discuss safety (again) with my own teenager who grew up on adverts showing men asking young people to help look for their missing daughter/puppy etc...( I never understand the 'do you want some sweets', ' would you like to see some puppies approach' i was warned about but this seemed more plausible). I've taught her she owes no adult any help, ever and to listen to her instincts, but this advert is telling people both to listen to their instincts and override them. It's made me want to read the gift of fear so that I can check I don't have any blind spots when it comes to over riding my own instincts for safety

Samaritans have been running the Small Talk Saves Lives campaign since 2017 and the "Do you know where I can get a coffee?” line has been used from the beginning.

It is actually a rather daft question to ask on a station platform, but it's made worse by the script of this ad.

"I the line 'there is nothing you could have done to prevent it' is a comforting lie told to make it easier for grieving family members"

I am glad you are ok.

Please, never say this out loud to someone at your support groups.

What, over people who have actual lived experience of feeling suicidal?
I think they'd be better placed to say what is effective at "pulling them
out of it" than mumsnetters.

This is the trouble with thinking in silos. Yesterday we did women's safety. Today we are doing suicide. So today we are only considering what's good for "pulling suicidal people out of it" and we do not ask if that also puts more women in danger.

We will not do a risk analysis to compare how often talking to a total
stranger has prevented a suicide and how often it's brought a parcel of shit
down on the friendly woman who tried it.

And "lived experience" is rapidly becoming another of those phrases that makes my heart sink. It's one-sided, it gets played like a trump card and it's a way out of doing a proper comparison. They specifically talked to people with lived experience of suicidal feelings or family and they talked to the general travelling public. And if they didn't specifically talk to people (women) with ^lived experience" of harrassment they will have got a skewed result that minimises the downside.

Someone determined on jumping in front of a train would have had these thoughts for a long while and likely received support from various places already. A "small talk" with some random woman off the bench isn't going to suddenly make him not suicidal.

That's not actually what studies show. Yes, people experiencing depression may have suicidal thoughts over a long period of time but the actual shift from suicide ideation to taking action is actually normally a terrible quick impulse - a study a while ago working with survivors found that the average length of time between deciding to make an attempt and the attempt is 12 minutes.

That's why so many seemingly small interventions can have such a big impact- like making it harder to buy large quantities of paracetamol for example, may mean that someone does not take an overdose because in the time it takes them to walk to three different shops, that moment of crisis has passed. It is also rare (sadly not that rare) for someone who survives an attempt to try again which is why psych wards usually discharge patients quite soon after an attempt.

Honestly, from my experience as a survivor of attempted suicide and someone who does attend support groups for such, I think the majority of suicides are sadly very preventable and I think the line 'there is nothing you could have done to prevent it' is a comforting lie told to make it easier for grieving family members. Of course, it isn't anyone's fault when someone takes their own life, and it's bad luck that puts someone alone and within reach of means when at crisis point but I do think the narrative that suicides are super determined people who no one could stop from taking their own lives is, 90% of the time, not accurate.

Go away from the station if you want to jump in front of a train?

WHAT ABOUT THE TRAIN DRIVER?

Shouting, because I said this earlier in the thread. This is a pretty traumatising experience to foist on someone, isn't it? Drivers who have had it often have to give up their job, and are forever haunted by what happened.

It's very relevant if you're thinking that the statistics of male-on-male assault mean that a woman approaching a strange man is at less risk than he is.

If a woman approaches a strange man to express concern about his welfare, she's the party at most risk.

Are you male or female?

You've totally missed the point (again).

The ad treats women as emotional support humans. Doormats who are just there to support the important humans - the male ones. Do you understand now?

I don't view myself as an emotional support human and I find it offensive that someone is running a campaign which suggests that this is women's role.

If you can link to a parallel ad which has a man approaching the suicidal man to help him, I might change my mind (although it's still irresponsible to suggest that women should ignore their instincts and put themselves in danger to 'save' a man they don't know).

Yes, everyone knows coffee is a loaded word. I can’t work out why the ad agency would use it though or why the Samaritans signed it off.

Did you read the whole paragraph I quoted from the campaign? I was referring to the last part:

the campaign’s potential effectiveness was tested with commuters, the public and people with lived experience

They tested it with 'commuters' and 'the public' as well as 'people with lived experience'.

Obviously Mumsnet is part of 'the public'. Many will also be 'commuters' and some will be 'people with lived experience'.

My suggestion was just that mumsnet would be a good subset of 'the public' to test this on. If they'd done that they might have produced a better campaign which didn't suggest that women should disregard their instincts and put themselves in danger to rescue random men. And that this was particularly women's problem to solve - where is the video showing a man rescuing another man?

Also, how many men are attacked by female strangers?

I'm not sure how relevant that is to an individual male assessing risk. It's no better for him if he's attacked by another man - well, almost certainly worse.

By only considering perspectives of suicidal people, the researchers and advert makers ignore the impact on the emotional support human. Running the campaign past Mumsnet would have given them the perspective of a large sample of the people who are the world's default emotional support humans: mothers
You see yourself and other women as emotional support humans.
You say mothers like you speak for all of us.

By only considering perspectives of suicidal people, the researchers and advert makers ignore the impact on the emotional support human
See, this is where we're just coming at it from different angles.
You see yourself as a support human, and then there's men.
Fair enough.
I see it as we're all humans.

I think that was because 'Falafel' was extending empathy towards males and envisaging MNers were all female, and therefore not actually humans with feelings. Just support humans, as you note.

Oh, my issue was the weird logic fail that suggested Mumsnetters and 'people with lived experience of feeling suicidal' were mutually exclusive categories.

There are two people involved in this scenario: the suicidal man and the emotional support human woman. By only considering perspectives of suicidal people, the researchers and advert makers ignore the impact on the emotional support human. Running the campaign past Mumsnet would have given them the perspective of a large sample of the people who are the world's default emotional support humans: mothers.

@ArabellaScott have I expressed the problem clearly?

So. How do we go about raising these issues with Samaratins, Network Rail?

ASA?

I am typing and retyping this but I can't say it without being rude.

THINK about what you're saying for five fucking minutes before typing.