In an article in a recent Spectator magazine, Elizabeth Hardman reflects on the problems that beset males today:
The idea of women having a rotten deal has become so firmly entrenched in British public life that we have become blind to the problem emerging for the boys.
Hardman gives evidence, including the suicide rate:
This year the Office for National Statistics reported that young men are no longer the group most likely to kill themselves. That is because men in their early forties have taken over as the most vulnerable group. Men in general account for 77 per cent of all suicides in the United Kingdom, up from 63 per cent in the 1980s. The suicide rate for men in their forties is the highest it has ever been. The overall suicide rate is down, but that’s driven mainly by a decrease in women taking their lives — the rate for female suicides has halved since 1981. The male suicide rate has fallen by just 8 per cent since then.
Hardman concludes:
But while our political debate quite comfortably lumps certain problems together as ‘women’s issues’, there is a noticeable reluctance to do the same for men, or to worry about our sons. Last month, opposition MPs and journalists kicked up a stink about the new women’s minister, Nicky Morgan, not being senior enough. Perhaps on the basis of the trends we’re seeing today, we also need a minister for men.
