The male suicides: Social perfectionism is killing men — and things are getting worse

[whatthehey]

88. This probably doesn't help, but I'd like to follow your path

I don't want to seek sympathy. I don't deserve it. I work despite a disability because I prefer the pain and risk and inconvenience to the decrease in income. But given a lesser differential I would not work. Unlike you, I have no children to care for even. Your life is doubtless harder than mine would be at home. Could I stand the (inevitable, sadly) dismissal and scorn that men who choose not to work receive, unless they are at Hawking levels of overt physical restrictions? Probably no better per se. That's an expectation uniquely directed at men, by both men and women, consciously and unconsciously. A woman in a couple, even without a disability, who chooses to manage the home while her SO works outside is generally perceived as a busy homemaker doing vital and demanding tasks. A man, even disabled, who chooses the same is generally perceived as a hapless sponge.

Incidentally for those who doubt this try a little experiment on the equivalence between self and work. Ask 10 working men not close to you what they do. Ask 10 similar women the same question. It will be a rare sample of 20 where any of them gives an answer other than work-related, but looking deeper will show a glaring difference. Unless you are on a kibbutz or a Greenpeace meeting I can pretty much guarantee at least 9 and probably 10 of the men will say " I AM a.....". Probably no more than 5 of the women will say the same. The others will "work for X or" or "Do Y and Z at company A". Men see themselves mostly as their jobs, not as a person doing the job.

It's probably easy to say that I would be able to stand up to the sneering, but then I've never had to. Certainly consciously I am sure we both agree we should be able to, that managing a home, especially with kids and a disability, is no cushy sinecure and that we should be able to laugh away any sexist criticism that we do not work outside the home, but conditioning is pervasive and it says that men must work and provide while they can still stand and move, even if like me their ability to do either is much reduced.

Suicide is a final option in more ways than one. I believe painless, medically managed suicide should be available to all mentally capable adults with no stigma. But for me it would not be a choice because I was laughed at or sneered at. That would push me the other way personally just to spite them. It's not unlikely I will go that way eventually, but it will be because the pain and indignity of living has become worse than whatever benefit I can forseeably derive from life, not because somebody thinks I'm not macho or alpha. Frankly, as long as you personally enjoy your life and your family more than your pain and your handicaps make your life miserable, to hell with anybody who wants to belittle you for suffering through what most of them will never understand.