Male suicide: ‘Gender should not be a death sentence’

We take a two-fold approach to changing and saving lives: firstly providing support for men who are down or in crisis, and secondly campaigning for culture change to tackle outdated stereotypes of masculinity that prevent men seeking help.

We do this in the face of a problem that is deeply entrenched. Many men feel forced to stoically “man up” (whatever that means) and grind through bad times without societal permission to open up or seek help. Calm’s research shows that while 67% of women tell someone about going through depression, only 55% of men do the same.

The result? Men are three times more likely than women to take their own lives and suicide is the single biggest killer of men aged between 20 and 49 – something the Duke of Cambridge describes as “an appalling stain on our society”.

But the tide is turning. Since Calm was founded 10 years ago, awareness of male suicide has trebled. Definitively, men are talking more. Calm alone has taken 200,000 helpline calls to date, and prevented more than 1,000 suicides.

The work of organisations and campaigns such as Lift The Weight and the royals’ mental health campaign Heads Together (Calm is a partner charity of the latter) – is a massive step forward. Historically, the alpha-male archetype has had no time for conversations about emotions but, in recent weeks, this has been dismissed by men such as Stormzy, Rio Ferdinand, and Calm’s patron Professor Green – strong, famous, tough men explaining how communication has, in some way, saved their lives.

There is still much work to be done. The emphasis now is to move beyond the rallying cry to open up. We must better equip ourselves, our mates, our workplaces, schools and health services to support those who need it. And we start by building a generation who believe that society’s ideas of your gender should not be a death sentence.

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123.
In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.

Male suicide: ‘Gender should not be a death sentence’

Kids on the Edge review – an antidote to the hysteria around gender identity

What a timely programme Kids on the Edge: The Gender Clinic (Channel 4) has proven itself to be. The first of a three-part series that will look at the mental health of children in the UK, this episode focuses in on the work of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust’s gender identity development services in London. These services are now greatly in demand: the clinic has gone from 40 referrals a year a decade ago to 1,400 in 2015. This rapid expansion of parents seeking help and advice has, depressingly, led to a kind of small-scale hysteria in recent times about what it means when children might be trans, bringing with it rabid front pages about them being “damaged” or “confused” by a TV show featuring a transgender character, for example.

I hope the people who rage about such things might also find the time to watch The Gender Clinic, which does a steady job of dismantling many of the panicked, inaccurate fears around what is clearly a complex process. In it, we follow two families discussing the possibility of hormone blockers for their children, which would pause puberty until, in time, a bigger decision can be made. There is Ashley, a headstrong young girl who was born a boy called Ashton, and her mum Terri, who is attempting to keep her daughter safe from bullying at school. And there is Matilda, who has an autistic spectrum disorder and whose gender identity is less defined, though by the end of the programme he is Matt at school. Rachel, Matt’s mother, is supportive but terrified of making the wrong decision for her child in either direction.

As a documentary, this is courageous enough to do what online discussion is often incapable of: explore the subtleties that get lost in the vicious polemics that can dominate the public reporting of such stories. Part of its effectiveness is down to director Peter Beard, who approaches the families with an obvious tenderness. He tells Terri – who is wondering whether to move the whole family again, to better serve Ash’s needs – that “there’s no instruction manual, is there?” His way with the kids is easy and kind. To get to the heart of what Ash is going through, he asks a simple question, made all the more devastating by the response. “What would be the best thing ever?” he asks her, as she plays. “Not being how I am,” she replies, casually, still playing.

It does not shy away from the trickier parts of the picture. Consultant psychiatrist Polly Carmichael explains that often, people are seeking certainty, and the reality is that in the case of hormone blockers, there is no certainty; research in this area is not far-reaching yet. The Tavistock’s staff sit cautiously in the middle of the many areas of debate. She talks about the impact of social media on young people seeking answers or reassurance. Ash, who declares that she will go to Sweden to get a womb transplant and then have a caesarian, Googles everything, says her mother. Carmichael says her patients understand the ideas but not the implications. Part of her role is to explain that “physical intervention is not the panacea to all things”.

There is a grotesque exaggeration perpetuated by some that the doctors and psychiatrists who treat children questioning their identities are trigger-happy gender-abolitionists, ready to strike every tomboy with a shot of testosterone if they so much as hint at cropping their hair. The reality is that the Tavistock’s team are articulate and circumspect. They deal with impossibly tough situations with a gentle level-headedness. This documentary makes clear that when a child is referred to their care, the process is thorough, considered and done in the best interests of both the child and the family.

What contributes to the wider hysteria about gender identity (a hysteria that can be fatal; I am thinking of the death of Lucy Meadows, the teacher who killed herself in 2013 after her gender reassignment became national news) is, in part, a desperate lack of empathy and knowledge. In showing its complicated workings, in showing that professional decisions may take in many different voices over many years, in telling stories that correct misconceptions simply by giving them a human face, perhaps The Gender Clinic might start to redress the balance. Carmichael ends the documentary by admitting that, right now, this is “an evolving picture”. But, she says, she knows one thing: that the young people who have taken this route feel it was right for them.

Kids on the Edge review – an antidote to the hysteria around gender identity

Gender pay gap could take 170 years to close, says World Economic Forum

The authors of a new report forecasting that it could take 170 years to eradicate the disparity in pay and employment opportunities for men and women have called for urgent action to close the gender equality gap.

The report by the World Economic Forum – best known for its high-profile gathering each year in Davos, Switzerland – found that economic disparity between women and men around the world was rising even though the gap was closing on other measures, such as education.

When measured in terms of income and employment, the gender gap has widened in the past four years; at 59%, it is now at a similar level to that seen in the depths of the financial crisis in 2008.

Last year, the WEF predicted it would take 118 years for economic parity to be achieved. This year, the Geneva-based institution has calculated the gap would take until 2186 – 170 years – to close.

Now in its 11th year, the report measures the relative discrepancies between women and men across four key areas: health, education, economy and politics.

The report says: “More than a decade of data has revealed that progress is still too slow for realising the full potential of one half of humanity within our lifetimes.”

The authors, Richard Samans and Saadia Zahidi, said they hoped the report “will serve as a call to action for governments to accelerate gender equality through bolder policymaking, to business to prioritise gender equality as a critical talent and moral imperative, and to all of us to become deeply conscious of the choices we make every day that impact gender equality globally”.

The economic gap is caused by a number of factors, including women being paid almost half of what men receive, working on average 50 minutes a day longer and having a much slimmer chance of reaching senior roles.

Graphic showing the average working day for men and women across the 144 countries surveyed. Photograph: WEF

Zahidi blamed slower economic growth for keeping women out of the workforce and added that, after making some progress, “we’re now hitting a bit of a wall” in terms of policy changes to help women in the workplace. Automation is affecting jobs in sales and administration – sectors with relatively high levels of female employment.

On an overall scale, including health, education and politics, the gender gap could be closed in 83 years across the 107 countries included in the report since it was originally published in 2006 – which is “just within the statistical lifetime of the baby girls born today”.

Gender gap

Within that overall measure, the education gap could be closed in 10 years, while the inequality in politics – which has the widest gap, despite having closed by 23% – should end in 82 years because of the fast pace of improvement since 2006, when it stood at 14%.

This year, 144 countries are included. Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden are in the top four, while Rwanda makes it in to the top five.

The UK has risen to 20th from 18th place in the overall rankings, well below its top 10 position in 2006.

The UK’s rankings were compiled before Theresa May became prime minister following the vote for Brexit and are affected by a change to the way income is measured, which lifted the cap on estimated income from $ 40,000 (£32,800) to $ 75,000. This pushed the UK down in the economic parity ranks by 10 places to 53. As a result, the US is also ranked as less gender equal, falling 17 places to 45.

Gender pay gap could take 170 years to close, says World Economic Forum

Julia Gillard: "We"ve made progress in education and gender equality – but more must be done"

A few years ago, an outbreak of cholera and other deadly diseases swept through one of the poorest villages in the northern region of Ghana, taking the life of Ruhainatu’s mother, Jamila.

Ruhainatu was in her teens. A decade ago, Jamila’s death would have extinguished Ruhainatu’s chances of getting the education she needs to succeed in life. Instead of going to school, she would have taken on her mother’s role of caring full time for her home and family.

But efforts by the Ghanaian government, together with development partners like the Global Partnership for Education, have strengthened the country’s education system. Now Ruhainatu and girls like her have a more hopeful prospect for life. One of the top performing students in the local school, Ruhainatu has ambitions to go away to university to become a nurse and then return to her village to help others remain healthy.

Ruhainatu has ambitions to go away and train as a nurse. Photograph: GPE/ Stephan Bachenheimer

Her story is one of countless affirmative real-life testimonials showing how educating girls can help them be healthier, more economically prosperous and become more civically empowered women. Their new knowledge can also improve the health and wellbeing of others around them.

But enabling children to succeed requires the right combination of support, so that they will be healthy, well-nourished and can attend a quality school that has access to clean drinking water and toilets.

Providing school meals and deworming programmes, for example, can have an important impact. The 2016 Unesco global education monitoring report notes that school meals and deworming programmes promote better education outcomes, especially for girls. For very poor families, the prospect that their daughter will be fed means that sending her to school is a more attractive option than keeping her at home so she can attend to domestic duties, farm work or taking goods to market. Greater access to clean water can also translate into education improvements for girls, by reducing the time they take to collect water for the family and giving them more time for school.

This give-and-take between education and other social development factors has received more emphasis since the unveiling of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) last year. We are breaking down the silos that have historically divided development sectors. Education and global health groups now understand that improvements in each are essential to progress for both and we are already creating opportunities for deeper collaboration.

Now the evidence of what works is increasingly clear, let’s just get on with it and drive progress on the mutually reinforcing goals for global education (SDG 4) and gender equality and women’s empowerment (SDG 5).

For groups like the Global Partnership for Education, whose board I chair and which partially funded the program in Ghana that helped Ruhainatu, “getting on with it” includes continuing to support countries to close the gender gaps in their education systems.

We are breaking down the silos that have historically divided development sectors.

Closing those gaps requires recognising and breaking down barriers to gender equality. Poverty is the biggest, but other significant factors include ethnicity, language, disability, early marriage, the distance from home to school, gender-biased pedagogy, fragility and conflict, absence of proper sanitary facilities, pressure to take care of family or earn money, and insecurity within and on the way to school.

We – in education or in any other related development sectors – could accomplish much more in less time if there was sufficient political support and enough financing. This includes first and foremost more domestic financing for education by developing countries themselves. But it also requires more donor funding. We can’t “just get on with it” when education’s share of overseas development aid has fallen from 13% to 10% since 2002. The International Commission for Financing Global Education Opportunities, notes in its just-released report that under present trends, only one in 10 young people in low-income countries will be on track to gain basic secondary-level skills by 2030. Clearly, this is completely unacceptable.

The Education Commission, on which I serve as a commissioner, advocates for a range of far-reaching transformations to improve education. The commission’s work provides new evidence on what works and costs out what it would take for the world to educate every child.

The call to action in financing is to increase total spending on education from $ 1.2tn (£0.9tn) per year today to $ 3tn (£2.3tn) by 2030. That’s a big jump but not an insurmountable one.

Making the leap starts with developing countries, donors, NGOs, the private sector and many others choosing right now to just get on with it.

Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @GuardianGDP on Twitter.

Julia Gillard: "We"ve made progress in education and gender equality – but more must be done"

The Reality About Gender Equity In School Sports activities And The School Athletes" Rights Movement

Just lately, opponents of shell out-for-perform in college sports activities have turned to ‘gender equity’ as their newest argument towards making it possible for school athletes to management the rights to their personal likenesses.

These opponents have argued that Title IX serves as a “roadblock” to compensating only income-generating athletes, and that principles of gender equity demand athletic unions to bargain for identical terms for all athletes.

These arguments, however, obscure the correct nature of gender inequity in school sports.  In actuality, university sports activities might have a gender equity dilemma.  However, this dilemma is induced by the NCAA — not by pupil-athletes’ rights groups.

Here are three reasons why:

1.  The current gender shell out gap among college coaches is 1 of the worst in society.  Even without making it possible for university athletes to control the value of their personal likenesses, there is an huge and growing shell out gap amongst male and female school coaches. For example, Duke University pays its men’s basketball coach, Mike Mike Krzyzewski, nearly $ 10 million per year meanwhile Duke pays its women’s basketball coach, Joanne P. McCallie, someplace in the ballpark of $ 729,991.  Making issues worse, salary information obtained by the New York Instances from the U.S. Division of Education indicates that from 2003 to 2010 the typical pay of NCAA Division I men’s group coaches increased by 67 %, whereas the average pay out for NCAA Division I women’s crew coaches elevated just sixteen percent.  Thus, the gender shell out gap between NCAA member coaches is not only huge, but also widening.

2.  There are also disproportionately number of women in crucial athletic director positions.  This glass ceiling that many NCAA member schools have positioned on women in athletic management also can’t be ignored.  For illustration, when Rutgers University employed Julie Hermann as its athletic director final 12 months, Hermann became only the 2nd female athletic director in the Large Ten Conference’s more than 120 year history.  Meanwhile, a February 2011 article written by Libby Sander that was originally published in the Chronicle of Higher Training indicated that at the time, “women [held just] five of 120 athletic-director positions in Division I-A.”

 3.  Finally, a lot of NCAA members implicitly endorse a WNBA minimal age rule that calls for women’s university basketball players to delay their professional hoops dreams longer than guys.  With respect to women’s athletes themselves, several NCAA leaders look to have implicitly endorsed the WNBA’s collectively bargained rule that calls for American women’s basketball players to wait four many years soon after their high school graduation ahead of turning professional, even even though men’s basketball gamers may turn professional following just one particular 12 months of school. Even though the WNBA age rule may be a boon to the revenues of the most effective women’s university basketball plans, the WNBA’s minimal age rule  keeps hopeful female skilled basketball gamers dependent on other individuals for economic support for far longer than their male counterparts.  As a outcome, elite women’s basketball players possibly want manage above their personal publicity rights even far more than their male counterparts.  Without such rights, numerous are forced to financially rely on other individuals properly into their twenties.

Based mostly on these above examples, probably its time to analyze a lot more critically the gender equity arguments against enabling school athletes to earn money.  In the gestalt, pay out-for-play may possibly not be school sports’ correct gender equity dilemma, and these arguments may possibly carry a tad significantly less weight than on very first glance.

____________________________

Marc Edelman is an Associate Professor of Law at the City University of New York’s Baruch School, Zicklin College of Enterprise, where he has published much more than 25 law assessment articles on sports activities law issues.  His most latest articles or blog posts include “A Brief Treatise on Amateurism and Antitrust Law” and “The Long term of Amateurism following Antitrust Scrutiny.”

Adhere to me on Twitter here

The Reality About Gender Equity In School Sports activities And The School Athletes" Rights Movement

Let"s not drag gender stereotypes into L"Wren Scott"s death

L’Wren Scott, who was discovered dead in New York on Monday soon after an apparent suicide. Photograph: Rex Attributes

What makes a stunning, productive and incredibly wealthy lady get her personal daily life? In lieu of any sort of evidence, the suspected suicide of designer L’Wren Scott is as baffling as it is heartbreaking for anyone who believes that depression is the sole preserve of the bad and unsightly.

Except if, of program, you think that a childless, unmarried lady has each and every purpose in the globe to be depressed.

It truly is there in so considerably of the coverage, but one line in the Daily Mail sums it up: “L’Wren knew that … Mick had no time for matrimony and small for monogamy. She appeared to be enjoying a lengthy game. But after chalking up 12 many years by his side, she could hardly be blamed for hoping for far more.” Besides, regardless of renovating their multimillion-dollar Manhattan appartment 10 many years in the past to consist of “a nursery and nanny quarters … no child ever arrived”.

Really, at 49, what else is a childless lady unable to persuade her extended-phrase spouse to marry her to do but “plunge into depression”?

Mental-overall health workers and charities have struggled for many years to get the rest of us to recognize that depression and suicidal thoughts are not automatically triggered by “bad luck”. But what considerably reporting of these tragic events demonstrates time following time is a refusal to think this, allied with the worst types of gender stereotypes.

This influences men as much, if not a lot more, than women. A report by the Samaritans into the growing suicide costs among guys in 2012 posited the thought that, in the very same way girls should be in want of a little one, men need to be in possession of a good work. With figures revealing that guys aged forty-44 have been the most at risk of truly going by means of with rather than attempting a suicide, the report found: “Males compare themselves against a ‘gold standard’ which prizes energy, control and invincibility.”

Last month, ONS figures unveiled that, in 2012, 4,590 male suicides were registered in the Uk, in contrast with 1,391 female – the biggest gap for thirty many years.

By analysing each and every of these deaths, the report drew some conclusions in a discipline riven by confusion. Two information stand out. The initial is that deprivation and poverty have some effect on costs of suicide: so, men in the lowest socioeconomic group living in the most deprived areas are around 10 times more most likely to kill themselves than men from a lot more privileged socioeconomic backgrounds residing in the most affluent regions.

The second is that about 90% of men and women who destroy themselves have been struggling from a psychiatric disorder at the time of their deaths.

In some approaches these information could contradict every other – is it mental sickness or poverty that leads to despair? But isn’t it attainable, alternatively, to see them as linked: that these living in poverty, in deprived locations, are less very likely to have acquired the psychological-well being assist they need to have ahead of taking their personal lives?

Suicide, virtually extremely hard to comprehend by individuals with no mental sickness, then turns into a blame game, as we clutch at straws to describe why someone could have ended their very own lives. If that man or woman seems to have almost everything that cash and attractiveness can bestow, then the easiest point, specially for journalists chasing deadlines and with huge amounts of space to fill, appears to be to fall back on stereotype.

To be honest, numerous information reports following L’Wren Scott’s death recommend that financial worries may have been at the heart of the difficulty. None of us can really know the effect of corporate losses of £3.5m on a trend designer with multiple homes and rumours of a profitable new deal. As an alternative, reports point out how proud she was of having her own company, specifically when Scott could so effortlessly have gone with the moniker of “Mick Jagger’s girlfriend”.

About 4,400 individuals kill themselves in England each year – that is one death every two hours – and at least 10 occasions that quantity attempt suicide. Maybe the faster we give up this facile gender-based knowing of happiness – girls need to have children and a husband even though guys need to have to work – the better it will be for us all.

• If you are affected by anything at all in this piece, please phone 08457 90 90 90 (United kingdom) 1850 60 90 90 (ROI) or go to samaritans.org. For confidential help, phone the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on one-800-273-8255.

Let"s not drag gender stereotypes into L"Wren Scott"s death

Searching stunning in sequinned socks – a quite Tory solution to the sports gender gap | Alex Andreou

Helen Grant, holder of ‘a portfolio so disparate it may well as nicely be Miscellaneous Stuff None of The Guys Needed to Do’. Photograph: Jan Kruger/Getty Photographs

Helen Grant, the minister for sports, equalities and tourism – a portfolio so disparate it may as well be Miscellaneous Things None of The Men Wanted to Do – has uncovered the centrepiece of government policy to tackle the gender gap in sports activities uptake. It essentially boils down to encouraging ladies to engage in sports that involve cuter outfits.

The complete interview in which Grant described her views reads like some thing scripted for an edition of Brass Eye. She suggests “[t]here are some superb sports which you can do and execute to a very high degree and I feel people participating look absolutely radiant and very feminine this kind of as ballet, gymnastics, cheerleading and even roller-skating.” For adult females, she suggests “a Zumba class or a game of rounders following they’ve dropped the kids off”. She described her response when, just lately, she was a spectator at a roller-blading occasion: “Individuals women arrived and they looked definitely lovely. They have been sporting their socks pulled up, gorgeous socks with sequins and their hair was accomplished.”

The government has identified a gender gap in sports activities uptake – the recognition of the difficulty is a important phase. It needs to encourage more women to get up sport – this is an admirable objective. It has recognized that stereotypes about femininity may possibly play an essential element in this gender gap – an excellent and crucial observation. To then determine that part of the resolution entails classifying some sports as “butch” and other people as “girlie”, to endorse this kind of stereotypes, seems to me to display a cackhandedness which no volume of sequinned socks can make palatable. How does it inspire ladies to consider up sport, by incorporating to the strain of sportswomen to search “feminine” – what ever that entails – and incorporating to the scrutiny of their look, consistently alluded to by male sport commentators? Remember John Inverdale’s idiotic comments about Marion Bartoli’s physical appearance, as she won Wimbledon.

It is only superficially surprising to hear this kind of policies expressed by a female minister in David Cameron’s government. Cameron does not just have a “ladies difficulty” he has many. Support for his celebration from females is declining and has been for some time. The party is losing female MPs left, correct and centre – some resigning mid-phrase, some declaring they will not stand yet again, whilst other individuals are controversially deselected, as rumour has it, for being “a silly girl”.

The prime minister himself has appeared, on occasion, unable to quit himself from making remarks with a sexist hue, like telling Angela Eagle, a parliamentarian of expertise and clout, to “calm down dear”.

Cameron is under stress to appoint female MPs to ministerial positions, but the pool from which he can pick is small and ever-diminishing. He is taunted by Miliband for his all-male frontbench. Former female Tory MPs like Anne Widdecombe are queueing up to criticise “silly modern day” ones. The strategic Cabinet coalition committee contains not a single woman.

Secretary of state Philip Hammond would seem unable to distinguish amongst female shadow ministers, repeatedly mistaking Liz Kendall for Rachel Reeves on the BBC’s Query Time on Thursday evening. In his defence, he has been in back-to-back Cobra meetings and has most likely not witnessed a girl in two weeks.

In this hostile setting, with whom might junior ministers like Helen Grant discuss tips, to discover their flaws? If 1 can only poll rich, straight, white, middle-aged men on regardless of whether they would like to see a lot more girls cheerleading in tight lycra outfits, the answer ought to hardly come as a shock.

All this contributes to the government’s female deficit, but the dilemma, I feel, runs deeper than that. Conservative ideology explicitly seeks to preserve conventional values and roles and this involves gender ones. With Thatcher’s legacy fading, the Tory celebration might in no way yet again be a all-natural political house for ladies.

Searching stunning in sequinned socks – a quite Tory solution to the sports gender gap | Alex Andreou