1

Kaylee Noyes

Mrs. Mary Martin

Critical Discourse

27 November 2017

How Body Image and Gender Affect Depression and Suicide

There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than

anything that bleeds. Laurell K. Hamilton. The human mind is a very intricate and complexing

thing that most doctors will only ever dream about knowing to the full extent. Although, so many

things are unknown when it comes to the human mind, theres one thing that doctors have kind

of cracked; depression. Yet even though theres so many advances in the medical world, there

are still 44,193 suicides by Americans a year. Depression is a hormonal imbalance, there are

other factors that contribute to it as well. Doctors can prescribe medicine, therapy, and other

alternatives, but the patient has to be willing to get better.

If you were told that women are at a 20-40% higher risk to get a mental health disorder,

its safe to say that every person could assume that the suicide rate would be higher in females.

The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity in England 2007 survey found that 19% of women had

considered taking their own life. For men the figure was 14%. And women arent simply more

likely to think about suicide they are also more likely to act on the idea. The survey found that

7% of women and 4% of men had attempted suicide at some point in their lives (Daniel & Jason

Freeman, Why are Men More Likely than Women to Take their Own Lives, The Guardian).

With that being said, women out weight men in all statistics about suicidal thoughts and actions.

With that being said, surprisingly, 79% of the thirty-eight thousand suicides in America in 2015,
 2

were males. So what makes males so much more successful at committing suicide than women?

The answer is all in the how. The outcome of the suicide depends on which method you were to

use. For women, their most common method is overdose; while in men it is more likely to be

some sort of gun. Women are more likely to use a more peaceful way, not causing outer harm to

themselves, rather than males who often chose very blunt and violent options.

The ambiguity that women have higher mental health risks but lower suicide rates than

males, is studied by doctors and is known as the gender paradox of suicidal behavior. This is

believed to be because men are more intent on dying when attempting suicide. Whereas women

use less effective methods and are less intent of succeeding. But looking at this at a different

standpoint of gender bias, you can see where the typical stereotype of men are tough and dont

have feelings comes to play. In the book Impulse by Ellen Hopkins, one of the main characters,

Conner, ends up committing suicide because he felt like taking his depression pills would make

him look like a weak man. This is just one example of how the stigma of guys with depression

and suicidal thoughts are thought to make the guy be less manly. This stigma could be the reason

guys chose tougher or more violent methods of suicide.

Again, looking at the side of the gender bias, it is a lot more socially acceptable for a girl

to talk about what theyre feeling than it would be for a guy. In 2011, I personally lost a friend to

suicide, and he went undiagnosed with depression because he didnt want to ask for help.

Whereas, I continuously have friends that are girls that are diagnosed with depression because

they feel like they can talk about their problems more openly.

Going back to the stigma of being a guy, 100% do I believe that there is a correlation of

male stereotypes to their increase suicide rate and decreased mental health disorders. Being a

tough guy that theyre supposed to be, there could a direct correspondence with their answer in
 3

the survey. If males are supposed to be the stronger gender, if asked about their feelings and how

they feel about themselves, its natural for them to lie to keep the pattern aligned like everything

is okay. This could definitely impact the results of the survey because there could be a

population of men, that are too scared to tell the truth about their mental state, and these are

going to be the ones who do commit or try to commit suicide.

As a society, were all being force-fed images of this race of perfect people (Jessica

Lovejoy, Body Image Issues Are Not Just For Women, Huffington Post). All over the internet

there are pictures and blogs of what people should do, feel, and look like. Celebrities especially

make it difficult for people to view themselves are normal because people look up to them.

Although, a lot of celebrities do struggle with mental health disorders, they keep them hidden

and tucked away because they think it would hurt the ego and reputation. But, the rare celebrity

will come out and speak and publicly accept that their disorder is perfectly okay to have. But

even in the celebrity world, you can still see the gender bias that it is not okay for men to have a

mental illness. In an article by InStyle, titled Demi Lovato and 7 Stars Get Real About Their

Struggle with Mental Health, shows 8 people who all strongly and openly support mental health

problems, but not one of these people happens to be a male. This yet again supports the fact that

mental health and suicidal thoughts are more accepted by females rather than males.

Overall, there is not very much extremely credible research as to why males have a

higher suicide rate, other than the inference that it mental health is more acceptable if youre a

women. Almost all of the facts do support this hypothesis, but as to why the stigma on guys with

mental health disorders and suicidal thoughts is a bad thing, is still not exactly clear. Societal

standards are different in every country and in America, we still mental health and suicide under

the umbrella of topics should not be talked about and youll be shamed if you are affected by
 4

these problems. Mental health and suicide shouldnt be something that is considered a shameful

thing, people everyday are affected by them, even people who seem perfectly fine. If the stigma

of suicide would go away, there would be a significant decrease in suicides and mental health

disorders because people would be more willing to talk about it and not suffer until their pain is

unbearable.
 5

Works Cited

Bahou, Olivia. Demi Lovato and 7 Stars Get Real About Their Struggle with Mental Health.

InStyle.com, InStyle.com, 16 Aug. 2017, www.instyle.com/celebrity/demi-lovato-more-

stars-open-up-about-mental-health-struggles.

Freeman, Daniel, and Jason Freeman. Why Are Men More Likely than Women to Take Their

Own Lives? The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 21 Jan. 2015,

www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/21/suicide-gender-men-women-mental-health-

nick-clegg.

Hopkins, Ellen. Impulse (#1). Simon Pulse, 2008.

Lovejoy, Jessica. Body Image Issues Are Not Just For Women. The Huffington Post,

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 Mar. 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/jessica-lovejoy/body-

image-issues-are-not-just-for-women_b_5034285.html.

Powell, Jane. The Gender Paradox of Suicidal Behaviour and Why We Can't Address the

Issue. HuffPost UK, HuffPost, 31 Mar. 2015, www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jane-

powell/male-suicide-rate_b_6562478.html.

Suicide Statistics AFSP. AFSP, afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/.