I was wondering, since there are more males than females in the military, whether this was just the raw numbers and not the rates when I came across this: "America's female veterans face serious mental health struggles, too, and are even more likely as a percentage of the former service member population to attempt suicide, according to the Veterans Administration."
Fox News is often clickbait. I think this may be one of those times. I'm not even sure what they're claiming. As usual, in the legacy media, there are no citations to the data they're referring to.
I wondered something similar so I checked out the percentage of women in the US Military and found that it is just under 1 in 5. If that number is correct then women should be about 20% of the suicides, right? Being only 5% seems a red flag. I am also guessing that women don't come home to a husband who wants to kick them out, keep them away from the children and demand her financial support in the process.
Being in the military is not the same as being a veteran and they're talking about veteran suicide rates. Veterans are service members who have actually been deployed to a military combat zone. About 1 in 10 veterans are female.
Interesting. So females who are military and retired are not considered vets? I had assumed that a vet was anyone with prior military experience? Even if it is 10% that is still too high. If it is 10% shouldn't the male suicide rate be 90% not 95%? I suppose the margin of error gets pretty close if it is like that?
It's also possible they may have already adjusted for this in their numbers. It will take a little bit of research to see how they defined vets and women in the military. Ain't nuttin simple. Thanks for your input.
I came across the 'National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report' while digging around this morning. It looks like there's one every year. The latest is 2023 and there's a chart that directly compares the suicide rates between male and female vets on page 17.
It's a PDF and I never figured out how to link directly to those, but if you cut and paste '2023 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report' it will come right up.
I poked around a bit and found this definition of veteran:
"Department of Veterans Affairs defines a veteran as a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service and who was discharged or released under conditions other than dishonorable."
This would indicate that they are likely including all members of the armed forces whether they served in war time or not.
well Tom, that is a bit of a red herring isn't it!!??
And 'active military'.. mmmm sorry to split hairs.. but, there is lot's of hair splitting with the genders... I'd consider that there are some people that 'served in the active military' without having to defend themselves against a proper enemy...
Just to get this in here, women who serve are veterans. There are about 1 million female vets of the US Army alive today, about 400k of the Navy, about the same number of the Air Force. Veterans Affairs' many websites pay a lot of attention to women in the military and their after-service health care.
actually you are on the mark.. I'm not sure actually but I know of two guys who were in the Aussie navy and I'm not even sure if they saw 'action'.. yet got medals... etc., etc., Maybe a little bit of action.. Falklands for one of them anyway. perhaps.
A gay mate of mine walks for the Navy.. it sounds impressive.. then one realises he 'is only in the office'... so good point...
Dr Paul Conti addresses some of the " women don't come home to a husband who wants to kick them out" in his book on Trauma https://drpaulconti.com
My first book on Trauma before Bessel van der Kolk great Trauma book.
Conti talks about the Trauma of veterans returning home.. highly traumatised and then trouble starts and yet society expects these 'men' to return to normal as if nothing has happened.. when they possible killed, got shot at, saw their mates shot, blown up, etc etc. I was shocked I really must say... and it is one that is not, that I know of, talked about in Politics or general society... Men really are treated like dogs in this sense; Military people are treated like dogs...
One of the things I would like to remind people and only via Conti did I realise this: sometimes we talk about 'trauma' or 'bad experiences' and then it is like: talked about that, solved, all well, I'm normal now'. Conti disputes this. I remember telling my own therapist.. 2010.. I'm going to keep talking about this shit until I'm done.. normally with previous therapists I got the 'talked about, its gone, move on'.. no no no..
It is also funny how people, because of Australian Anzac Day.. remember the soldiers and the glory.. and what happens to the trauma, the horror.. "oh I'm thankful that I can live in a free country'.. well that is only because these guys went to war...
You were so right to keep talking. It is through telling the story within a certain safety that old stuff gets healed. The only one who knows if it needs to be talked about more is the one who was traumatized. I think people will often love dogs and treat them very well.....with men they are loved it they provide and protect.
living in Switzerland and learning German I learned that so many 'starts out as good German website and quickly went down hill'.. Took me a long time to realise that 'they are clickbait'.. it is rampant... in many areas...
This is probably a better source of data. I'm guessing you have much better math skills than I do, so I'll leave it to you to figure out if Fox was yanking our chains or not.
I do detect some bias in that the article is about suicide in veterans yet they gave the percentage of women in the military, as opposed to veterans, as 17.4%. A quick search online revealed that the percentage of female *veterans* in 2022 was around 10%.
Also, although they focus on the higher *increase* in female suicide, they never do compare the *actual* rates in men vs women. Sound familiar?
Yes, this sounds very familiar. "Oh my! Women have it worse since they are increasing at a greater rate!" "Call the Calvary!" All the while they are not saying that men suicide at a far greater rate. Reminds me of the obsession with female attempts versus male successful suicides.
My primitive math skills didn't see any glaring mistakes, just the all too common tendency to tell only a part of the story.
The best argument against 'women attempt it more' is that it's an artifact of the terminology. 'Suicides' are not counted as 'attempted suicides'. It would be far better to use 'succesful attempts' vs 'unsuccessful attempts'. In that case (you probably know the stats like the back of your hand, but I don't) I'd be willing to bet that men both attempt suicide more than women *and* are more succesful.
I also get sick of the 'cry for help' bullshit. If it's a cry for help, by definition, it can't be an attempted suicide. Once you wrap your head around that, you've got to wonder how many 'successful suicides' are really just failed cries for help.
Yes, women "attempt" more often. Someone said to me the other day that we need to change that idea of attempt and instead call it a failed suicide attempt. Frame it as a failure. lol But yes, women have more social support, they have more people who are openly concerned for their well being, and the world sows them much more compassion than it shows men. Plus, their default coping is talking and this alerts people to their state. Very different for men.
Here's a good anology to use for people that have trouble with the concept: The winning team scores more touchdowns, but the losing team attempts more.
I can say honestly, that in the past I might have felt more for the 'losing team attempts more'
feeling for the underdog which now gets lots of attention from the woke...
How does one measure 'attempts more'?
Obviously the 'attempts more' isn't working then if they didn't win???
aaaahhhh it's the 'we must all be equal' We cannot have the losers, losing outright because they might feel bad and we cannot have that...
Nice trick actually.. this is what I'm enjoying in our age now.. all this is being spotlighted and focussed on to show us how we are all influenced ...
I've become to sensitive I think to the wording used for 'bias'..
one thing I notice was the language.
It is kind of normalised!!??
As if people in the military that were in active combat should be able to handle everything because they get help...
I think there is a bias towards women in this report.. I will say, in experienced here, that it is not huge but it is there...
We are primed by the title: Suicide rate for female veterans rose 24% during COVID pandemic
It's not wrong but ...
what does this even mean: But there was a 24.1% age-adjusted increase for women veterans compared to 6.3% for men
'age adjusted' ?? means what the f*ck??
This is one of those reports that somehow is an opinion, information, clickbait and maybe bringing out a little bit/a big bit of 'women are suffering more now'...
during covid.. so were they out killing or just struggling because of lockdowns??
but you are right Derpetology101: Also, although they focus on the higher *increase* in female suicide, they never do compare the *actual* rates in men vs women
Guys who come out of the service and are battling any kind of demons are already behind the 8 ball because society has few supports for them and, when they were still serving, we’re probably told “suck it up, buttercup”.
And while a certain amount of sucking it up is necessary to maintain courage, these guys have crossed the threshold for which that is no longer appropriate.
So it is completely understandable that any kind of family issue would be the tipping point at which suicidal ideation occurs.
One need only go back to the original 2011 paper by Case and Deaton to see how this all goes down, before the term Deaths of Despair was hijacked by people who don’t know what the eff they are talking about.
Tom, what is new and remarkable in this is not the news itself -- we have known this for years -- but that Fox News reported it and that they even told the truth about how it is driven by family courts. An extensive literature documents how family courts drive male suicide, and not only in the military. I summarize it with references in Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family (2007), pp. 154-157: https://www.stephenbaskerville.com/taken-into-custody.
Always good to hear from you. For anyone interested please know that Stephen has an excellent Substack page that is linked on the front page of this site as a recommended substack. Stephen has been exposing the truth around these issues for many years. You can find his books listed on the Strong Voices on Men's Issues page here: https://menaregood.com/strong-voices-on-mens-issues/
I was wondering, since there are more males than females in the military, whether this was just the raw numbers and not the rates when I came across this: "America's female veterans face serious mental health struggles, too, and are even more likely as a percentage of the former service member population to attempt suicide, according to the Veterans Administration."
Fox News is often clickbait. I think this may be one of those times. I'm not even sure what they're claiming. As usual, in the legacy media, there are no citations to the data they're referring to.
I wondered something similar so I checked out the percentage of women in the US Military and found that it is just under 1 in 5. If that number is correct then women should be about 20% of the suicides, right? Being only 5% seems a red flag. I am also guessing that women don't come home to a husband who wants to kick them out, keep them away from the children and demand her financial support in the process.
Being in the military is not the same as being a veteran and they're talking about veteran suicide rates. Veterans are service members who have actually been deployed to a military combat zone. About 1 in 10 veterans are female.
Interesting. So females who are military and retired are not considered vets? I had assumed that a vet was anyone with prior military experience? Even if it is 10% that is still too high. If it is 10% shouldn't the male suicide rate be 90% not 95%? I suppose the margin of error gets pretty close if it is like that?
It's also possible they may have already adjusted for this in their numbers. It will take a little bit of research to see how they defined vets and women in the military. Ain't nuttin simple. Thanks for your input.
I came across the 'National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report' while digging around this morning. It looks like there's one every year. The latest is 2023 and there's a chart that directly compares the suicide rates between male and female vets on page 17.
It's a PDF and I never figured out how to link directly to those, but if you cut and paste '2023 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report' it will come right up.
I poked around a bit and found this definition of veteran:
"Department of Veterans Affairs defines a veteran as a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service and who was discharged or released under conditions other than dishonorable."
This would indicate that they are likely including all members of the armed forces whether they served in war time or not.
Oh, heck. I was already wrong about something just last week. Now I've gotta go another 51 weeks or my 'wrong per year' rate will double.
well Tom, that is a bit of a red herring isn't it!!??
And 'active military'.. mmmm sorry to split hairs.. but, there is lot's of hair splitting with the genders... I'd consider that there are some people that 'served in the active military' without having to defend themselves against a proper enemy...
Just to get this in here, women who serve are veterans. There are about 1 million female vets of the US Army alive today, about 400k of the Navy, about the same number of the Air Force. Veterans Affairs' many websites pay a lot of attention to women in the military and their after-service health care.
actually you are on the mark.. I'm not sure actually but I know of two guys who were in the Aussie navy and I'm not even sure if they saw 'action'.. yet got medals... etc., etc., Maybe a little bit of action.. Falklands for one of them anyway. perhaps.
A gay mate of mine walks for the Navy.. it sounds impressive.. then one realises he 'is only in the office'... so good point...
Dr Paul Conti addresses some of the " women don't come home to a husband who wants to kick them out" in his book on Trauma https://drpaulconti.com
My first book on Trauma before Bessel van der Kolk great Trauma book.
Conti talks about the Trauma of veterans returning home.. highly traumatised and then trouble starts and yet society expects these 'men' to return to normal as if nothing has happened.. when they possible killed, got shot at, saw their mates shot, blown up, etc etc. I was shocked I really must say... and it is one that is not, that I know of, talked about in Politics or general society... Men really are treated like dogs in this sense; Military people are treated like dogs...
One of the things I would like to remind people and only via Conti did I realise this: sometimes we talk about 'trauma' or 'bad experiences' and then it is like: talked about that, solved, all well, I'm normal now'. Conti disputes this. I remember telling my own therapist.. 2010.. I'm going to keep talking about this shit until I'm done.. normally with previous therapists I got the 'talked about, its gone, move on'.. no no no..
It is also funny how people, because of Australian Anzac Day.. remember the soldiers and the glory.. and what happens to the trauma, the horror.. "oh I'm thankful that I can live in a free country'.. well that is only because these guys went to war...
You were so right to keep talking. It is through telling the story within a certain safety that old stuff gets healed. The only one who knows if it needs to be talked about more is the one who was traumatized. I think people will often love dogs and treat them very well.....with men they are loved it they provide and protect.
Notice that with women, it is that they "attempt" suicide. Men succeed.
living in Switzerland and learning German I learned that so many 'starts out as good German website and quickly went down hill'.. Took me a long time to realise that 'they are clickbait'.. it is rampant... in many areas...
This is probably a better source of data. I'm guessing you have much better math skills than I do, so I'll leave it to you to figure out if Fox was yanking our chains or not.
https://www.stripes.com/veterans/2023-11-16/suicide-rate-women-veterans-increase-covid-12074884.html
I do detect some bias in that the article is about suicide in veterans yet they gave the percentage of women in the military, as opposed to veterans, as 17.4%. A quick search online revealed that the percentage of female *veterans* in 2022 was around 10%.
Also, although they focus on the higher *increase* in female suicide, they never do compare the *actual* rates in men vs women. Sound familiar?
Yes, this sounds very familiar. "Oh my! Women have it worse since they are increasing at a greater rate!" "Call the Calvary!" All the while they are not saying that men suicide at a far greater rate. Reminds me of the obsession with female attempts versus male successful suicides.
My primitive math skills didn't see any glaring mistakes, just the all too common tendency to tell only a part of the story.
The best argument against 'women attempt it more' is that it's an artifact of the terminology. 'Suicides' are not counted as 'attempted suicides'. It would be far better to use 'succesful attempts' vs 'unsuccessful attempts'. In that case (you probably know the stats like the back of your hand, but I don't) I'd be willing to bet that men both attempt suicide more than women *and* are more succesful.
I also get sick of the 'cry for help' bullshit. If it's a cry for help, by definition, it can't be an attempted suicide. Once you wrap your head around that, you've got to wonder how many 'successful suicides' are really just failed cries for help.
Yes, women "attempt" more often. Someone said to me the other day that we need to change that idea of attempt and instead call it a failed suicide attempt. Frame it as a failure. lol But yes, women have more social support, they have more people who are openly concerned for their well being, and the world sows them much more compassion than it shows men. Plus, their default coping is talking and this alerts people to their state. Very different for men.
Here's a good anology to use for people that have trouble with the concept: The winning team scores more touchdowns, but the losing team attempts more.
I'm shaking my head here.
what the f
I can say honestly, that in the past I might have felt more for the 'losing team attempts more'
feeling for the underdog which now gets lots of attention from the woke...
How does one measure 'attempts more'?
Obviously the 'attempts more' isn't working then if they didn't win???
aaaahhhh it's the 'we must all be equal' We cannot have the losers, losing outright because they might feel bad and we cannot have that...
Nice trick actually.. this is what I'm enjoying in our age now.. all this is being spotlighted and focussed on to show us how we are all influenced ...
I've become to sensitive I think to the wording used for 'bias'..
one thing I notice was the language.
It is kind of normalised!!??
As if people in the military that were in active combat should be able to handle everything because they get help...
I think there is a bias towards women in this report.. I will say, in experienced here, that it is not huge but it is there...
We are primed by the title: Suicide rate for female veterans rose 24% during COVID pandemic
It's not wrong but ...
what does this even mean: But there was a 24.1% age-adjusted increase for women veterans compared to 6.3% for men
'age adjusted' ?? means what the f*ck??
This is one of those reports that somehow is an opinion, information, clickbait and maybe bringing out a little bit/a big bit of 'women are suffering more now'...
during covid.. so were they out killing or just struggling because of lockdowns??
but you are right Derpetology101: Also, although they focus on the higher *increase* in female suicide, they never do compare the *actual* rates in men vs women
I have to stop.. I might explode or scream...
Guys who come out of the service and are battling any kind of demons are already behind the 8 ball because society has few supports for them and, when they were still serving, we’re probably told “suck it up, buttercup”.
And while a certain amount of sucking it up is necessary to maintain courage, these guys have crossed the threshold for which that is no longer appropriate.
So it is completely understandable that any kind of family issue would be the tipping point at which suicidal ideation occurs.
One need only go back to the original 2011 paper by Case and Deaton to see how this all goes down, before the term Deaths of Despair was hijacked by people who don’t know what the eff they are talking about.
Great post Tom
Sincerely,
Brian Willard: Filthy Liberal
Tom, what is new and remarkable in this is not the news itself -- we have known this for years -- but that Fox News reported it and that they even told the truth about how it is driven by family courts. An extensive literature documents how family courts drive male suicide, and not only in the military. I summarize it with references in Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family (2007), pp. 154-157: https://www.stephenbaskerville.com/taken-into-custody.
Totally agree Stephen.
Always good to hear from you. For anyone interested please know that Stephen has an excellent Substack page that is linked on the front page of this site as a recommended substack. Stephen has been exposing the truth around these issues for many years. You can find his books listed on the Strong Voices on Men's Issues page here: https://menaregood.com/strong-voices-on-mens-issues/