September 12, 2019

Russian men are at the top place for committed suicides

topic:	Humans
located:	Russia
editor:	Igor Serebryany

Russia holds the world's top place for the number of suicides committed by its male citizens, the WHO said in a report published ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day, Sept 10.

Among Russia's men, suicide ratio reaches 483 for one million persons. (Lithuania holds the second place with 475). Gender aside, Russia in general ranks third in the suicide rate around the world, after Guyana and Lesotho. There are too many factors driving Russian man to commit suicide, many local experts say, highlighting that the very structure of the nation's social life and traditions is the foundation to this issue as "Russian men owe everyone nearly from birth" and neither state nor society do anything to support the gender minority.

According to the Russian mentality, a man is born to sacrifice himself – to the Motherland, to his family, to his children, and to military duty. While there are dozens of laws and state institutions that set out to support motherhood, none exist to support fatherhood (the very word is rarely used in the country).

Russian women are officially banned from working in dozens of occupations, as these are considered "too hard or hazardous", still the men earn their right for retirement five years later than woman, stresses the country's leading expert in gender equality issues Dmitry Seleznev. "Russian men are driven to their graves with the huge injustice they face in every dimension of social life. Take alimony slavery, gender-biased approaches in courts, reproductive rights deprivation, to name a few", he says.

Seleznev, who has published a controversial book "The ABC for Men", points out that between 2008 and 2018, Russian legislators passed over dozen of laws that discriminated against the country's male population. Dozens of more bills of that sort were offered my the MPs but failed to become laws. "Remarkably, during those ten years, not a single initiative aimed at easing men's life had been offered by either the legislators or state officials".

It is a fact that Russian men suffer from gender discrimination, a professor in the Russian Academy of People's Economy and State Service, Natalia Korostyleva, says. "This discrimination is virtually legalized but it hasn't been a result of some deliberate policy of the state to drive men to suicides. This is a consequence of a long list of social, economic, psychological and demographic issues".

To some extent, this is indeed the fault of men themselves because they take their plight as a matter of course, Korostyleva adds. "Outside of the big cities, Russian men are prisoners of a centuries-old gender model that stipulates them to be hunters while women's role is to 'sustain fire'. As a result, men work to death living in never-ending stress and suffering from cardiovascular diseases; they destruct themselves with traditional 'masculine' ways of 'relaxation': smoking and drinking. Outside of the big cities, a healthy way of life or even visiting doctors is considered as 'sissy' with no alternative on offer", she says.

Photo: iStockphoto