Media Watch

10/3/01

So many men crying out for help

There has been a general awareness for years of the growing rate of suicide among young men. But even so, the statistics highlighted this week by the Men's Health Forum are sobering.

Deborah Orr, The Independent, 9/3/01

As Deborah Orr points out, there's an awful lot of depression about.

And, from the point of view of men, there's a lot to be depressed about!

But women also get a lot of depression too.

However, can you imagine how much more depressed women would be if they lived in a country where people even laughed at jokes about their mutilation - their breasts being cut off, for example?

Or if they were living with their 'difficult' partners and children (and most partners are difficult, sometimes) and knew that they could very easily lose their homes AND their very own children if they upset 'him' too much?

Or if they lived in a country where they were considered to be so unworthy that they only received ONE-EIGHTH of the health funding reserved for men - even though they were dying six years earlier?

Or if they lived under a legal system where no real evidence was required to convict them of certain sexual acts, and where their accusers could remain anonymous and hidden while their own names were publicised?

Of if they lived in a country where the media kept denigrating, demeaning and disempowering them?

Goodness. They'd get depressed!