Are Women Dying In The War On Love?
Are Women Dying In The War On Love?
Posted Nov 28, 2008
The common teachings in my training program years said that single men were in a more precarious health position as compared with their married peers, and that women generally were more protected against completed suicide than men, especially those married and with children.
Well, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the recent article finding a massive rise in suicide among middle-aged women (Source: MSNBC)
Having seen thousands of women both in clinical mental health treatment and in the live coaching programs I put on for both men and women out on the town - to show them the latest techniques and tactics in effective dating - many at first view their dating lives as a mere hobby, a casual thing in the face of more important career strivings in the recent economic environment.
Meanwhile they also express significant discontent about the state of love and dating today - even going so far as to suspect most of their troubles are due to the strange and annoying habits and instincts of the other gender.
"Men can't commit, and all they want is the sex," I hear. Are they really an enemy of committed love?
"Women don't seem to appreciate me, and they nag me," I hear. Are they really an enemy of male contentedness?
Well, one quote I sometimes paraphrase from DH Lawrence in these trainings is that "the future of the world will not be determined by nations, but in the relations between men and women."
WASHINGTON - U.S. suicide rates appear to be on the rise, driven mostly by middle-aged white women, researchers reported on Tuesday.
They found a disturbing increase in suicides between 1999 and 2005 and said the pattern had changed in an unmistakable way - although the reasons behind the change are not clear.
The overall suicide rate rose 0.7 percent during this time, but the rate for white men aged 40 to 64 rose 2.7 percent and for middle-aged women 3.9 percent, the team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found.
"The biggest increase that we have seen between 1999 and 2005 was the increase in poisoning suicide in women - that went up by 57 percent," said Susan Baker, a professor in injury prevention with a special expertise in suicide.
If we compare this alarming change in danger to women to some of the observations from Lancet, 2000. We see that suicide by poisoning among women was still high, but the demographic more at risk was women under 30, with unemployment previously offset my more women entering the workforce, and protected against by having offspring to care for:
These possibilities are not mutually exclusive, and examples of each are apparent in the links between suicide and unemployment, divorce, and misuse of alcohol and drugs. Increases in the prevalence of these factors may have contributed to the rise in suicide rates among men in recent years and the widening gap between the sexes.5 Alcohol and drug misuse has also risen among women, although rates remain lower than among men. By definition divorce happens as commonly among men as among women, but the experience is often different. In particular, women are more likely to retain responsibility for the care of young children, a factor that seems to be protective against suicide.6 Although population unemployment rates may be associated with suicide in both sexes, the effect of rising unemployment rates among men in the 1980s on the socioeconomic circumstances of women, and therefore their risk of suicide, may have been offset by the increasing entry of women into the job market, another possible protective factor.
Today, we are not only under excessive economic strain, but as compared to years and decades past, there are also far less middle-aged women with children - that protective factor against suicide. In fact, in the age groups 40-44, double the rate of childlessness from thirty years ago. (Source: USA Today)
Meanwhile, that protective effect of marriage on men they taught us about in medical school years ago has begun to deteriorate.
New research by Hui Liu and Debra Umberson published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, suggests this story may be changing. Liu and Umberson looked at self-reported health data obtained as part of a huge US survey from over 1 million participants. They were interested in seeing how the relationship between marital status and health had changed between 1972 and 2003.
What they found was that the health gap between married men and men who had never been married narrowed in this 30-year period. By 2003 there was very little difference in health status between unmarried and married men. It seems that marriage no longer confers the same health benefits on men that it once did.
If we scan these four articles, they don't directly, irrefutably prove that a lack of love, a "War on Love" is directly killing more women than ever - ironically the most likely gender to actually seek out mental healthcare, be motivated to get treatment, and yet possibly still the greatest current "casualties of war."
However, they really do open up a lot of questions that we need to be very concerned about - to view dating and the mate selection process not just as a pastime, hobby, or casual "add-on" to our career strivings in an economic downturn, but a major educational need and a major public health crisis.
- Are men leaving commitments to marriage and children, or forgoing them entirely in part because the institution no longer benefits not only their mental well-being, but even their physical health?
- Are middle-aged women depressed and even dying because of a lack of mutual understanding between the genders, effectiveness at dating and mate selection, and a decrease in childbirth?
With a wealth of formal studies on committed relationships and marriage, and a relative lack of them on early dating and the details of mate selection placed in educational formats for practical application, is our lack of knowledge on this subject not only causing a loveless discontent, but literally killing women?
The articles don't directly address this, but clearly we, as a society, need to know.
If there is a "War on Love", then the enemy is not men or women as genders, but our lack of effective dating strategies for men and women individually, with a practical application of the findings.
"On the street," thousands of men have told me face to face that they really, truly desire a commitment, but just have not found a person they are both attracted to, yet also feel a real, true commitment back from. Many say that they don't feel valued and appreciated by women in general.
Just as many women tell me that they haven't had a real, proper date in a long time, and feel adrift in the sea of popularity of "hook-ups" and "hang-outs." Undefined, no-rules dating, rather than a true, thoughtful effort on the part of men to get to know them slowly, over time, and at a level that is more than just feeling the "sexual chemistry."
All of which to my mind sounds like a desperate societal need for what was once, long ago, called "courtship" - a slow, thoughtful, wise process of getting to know another person intimately, before diving in headlong into a lifetime commitment. Friends, family, and entire villages were once involved in assisting it...
...and while courtships ended in disappointment due to incompatibility at times, there wasn't a "War on Love" itself, or so many potentially true and permanent casualties.
We need to act. The cost of letting this study become a forgotten headline is far too great.
About the Author
