Shit
Information from the CDC discussed in the excerpt below can be found here.
Does anyone else think this is about the most damning bit of evidence against all that "war on boys" shit?
CDC: Suicide rate among U.S. girls soars
By Greg Bluestein
Associated Press Writer
Sep 6, 2007
ATLANTA - The suicide rate among preteen and young teen girls spiked 76 percent, a disturbing sign that federal health officials say they can't fully explain.
For all young people between ages 10 to 24, the suicide rate rose 8 percent from 2003 to 2004 — the biggest single-year bump in 15 years — in what one official called "a dramatic and huge increase."
The report, based on the latest numbers available, was released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and suggests a troubling reversal in recent trends. Suicide rates had fallen by 28.5 percent since 1990 among young people.
The biggest increase — about 76 percent — was in the suicide rate for 10- to 14-year-old girls. There were 94 suicides in that age group in 2004, compared to 56 in 2003. The rate is still low — fewer than one per 100,000 population.
Suicide rates among older teen girls, those aged 15-19 shot up 32 percent; rates for males in that age group rose 9 percent.
"In surveillance speak, this is a dramatic and huge increase," Dr. Ileana Arias said of the overall picture. She is director of the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
More research is needed to determine whether this is a trend or just a blip, said one child psychiatrist, Dr. Thomas Cummins of Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "We all need to keep our eye on this over time to see if this is a continuing trend."
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6 comments:
Considering the state of the world we live in, should this suprise me?
Or would this just be another example of survival of the fittest?
Hey BW, No, I guess it's not surprising.
I have this huge reply I started writing just now but I am under caffeinated and need to get out of the house sometime today so I copied it to a word document and will work on it later.
well according to furious seasons Philip Dawdy
Total suicides: 32,439 Rate 10.9 per 100,000
Men: 25,566 Rate: 17.7 per 100,000 or 79 percent of all suicides in 2004.
Women: 6,873 Rate: 4.6 per 100,000 or 21 percent of all suicides in 2004.
White Men: 21,214 Rate: 21.6 per 100,000 or 65 percent of all suicides in 2004.
White males make up about 30 percent of the US population
Hey Mark,
I think the reason for the coverage and more specifically of the CDC press release was the increase in rate in that group.
But you wanted to talk about men. Ok. I thought one of the reasons proposed for the higher rate of suicide in men is that some of the constraints of masculine gender roles keep men from expressing (and seeking/getting help for) symptoms of mental crisis. I don't remember where I heard that though.
I also have no citation to support this, but I believe that men have a higher success rate at suicide (fewer failed attempts), possibly as a result of preferred means (more guns, fewer pills).
But in the more general sense, I don't think the 'war on boys' is bullshit. It just isn't mutually exclusive with a 'war on girls'. I'll put out there the idea that what we have is more of a general societal disapproval of strongly gender-stereotyped behavior, or maybe some other category of behavior. Maybe call it a war on personal identity, regardless of gender.
Hey Jay,
I haven't read the book. I can't bring myself to. I'm sure it'll be like trying to read Ayn Rand.
I did look over an essay by Hoff Sommers (author of War on Boys). Here are the first two lines.
"This we think we know: American schools favor boys and grind down girls. The truth is the very opposite. By virtually every measure, girls are thriving in school; it is boys who are the second sex."
I'll try to find a free version of it online. Or if you find one, let me know.
I think it is Hoff Sommers, as author of the book and coiner of this term, who puts male and female development into a fallacious (as you would have it) complementarity (for lack of a better term). It was not a simple dichotomy Hoff Sommers' seems to have been making, nor a "what about the boys - aren't they hurting too?" statement. Actually, you can read Hoff Sommers' statements exactly contrary to that point in this interview.
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