Emma Watson is Wrong About Male Suicide

== Round Overview == Let's not forget what we're debating here. Pro has to prove *three things,* and he hasn't done so. 1) Pro had to prove that Emma Watson was wrong in saying that men are significantly less likely to seek treatment for depression. So Pro had to prove that men *seek treatment* just as often as women. In Round 2, I provided a study *proving* that men are less likely to seek treatment for mental illnesses. This proves Emma Watson's statement true. Pro has *never* contested this study. Pro agreed that if he failed to prove *any* of the three propositions, he lost. 2) Pro had to prove that Emma Watson was wrong to say that the male suicide rate is high because men don't seek treatment. I provided a study saying that the *biggest risk factor* for suicide is *untreated depression.* So if men seek treatment less often than women, we should *expect* the male suicide rate to be higher than the female suicide rate. And that's precisely what we see. Pro has never contested either study nor has questioned my chain of logic here. He merely plays *defense* and tries to prove that the gender gap in suicide rate can be explained away (in part) by other things. But Pro has the BOP here, not me. He can't win merely by playing defense, trying to chip away (piece by piece) at the gender gap in suicide rates. He had to prove that *none* of the gender gap is attributable to men being unwilling to seek treatment due to gender norms. And I have proven that this clearly plays a role. 3) Pro had to prove that once all the statistics are out there, Emma Watson's statement constitutes man-hating. However, I hope I have shown that there is -- at least -- enough doubt about the cause of the higher male suicide rate that someone who suggests that one of the major problems it that men don't seek help (due to gender roles, such as men having to be "strong" and seeing depression as a "female" disease). As long as a raise a reasonable doubt here, I prove that it's not man-hating to suggest what Emma Watson did. == Rebuttal == Pro makes a ton of new arguments here and provides a bunch of new statistics, so you'll have to excuse me if I have to introduce new evidence to respond to him (in the last round). It's not unfair, he merely chose to make his strongest case in the last round, so he's forcing me to put new responses here. R1) The "lemmings" argument This argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense. At best, it's an analogy that attempts to show why attempts are the same as actual suicides. But they aren't. The male (successful) suicide rate is far higher than the female one. My opponent can't obscure that will lemmings analogies. R2) Cry for help I'm sorry, I got lazy and linked a wiki article for the proposition that one explanation for why women use less-lethal methods of suicide is that they are doing it as a cry for help. Here's a better source: George E. Murphy, M.D., an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, says, "An attempted suicide is not really an attempt at suicide in about 95 percent of cases. It is a different phenomenon. It's most often an effort to bring someone's attention, dramatically, to a problem that the individual feels needs to be solved. . . women tend to use methods that allow for second thoughts or rescue. Murphy says that when people intend to survive, they choose a slowly effective, or ineffective, means such as an overdose of sleeping pills. That contrasts to the all-or-nothing means like gunshots or hanging used by actual suicides." [1] Murphy concludes that since women sometimes *do* use more lethal methods, "women, when they intend to do it, can be just as effective as men in committing suicide. But they aren't so inclined." [1] Thus, Murphy offers the best explanation for why women are more likely to use pills than men: they are using them more as a cry for help than as an actual attempt to end their own lives. My opponent clarifies that acetaminophen can be quite deadly. I agree. However, it's *not* fast acting. An overdose of Tylenol can be treated as late as *8 hours* after the person took the overdose. [2] It's still possible to die from it, if you *conceal* from family and friends that you took the overdose. But a lot of women *don't* conceal that they took the overdose, which is why so many fall within the statistics for *attempted* suicide and not *successful* suicide. This just further proves my point that women are more likely to use suicide as a cry for help, not as an attempt to end their lives. R3) Gun ownership is higher among men This is my opponent's only remotely strong argument in this debate, and it's a brand new one, so you'll have to give me some leeway to respond to it, even though this is the last round. I have two key responses. First, my opponent's *own source* says that *married* men are almost *twice* as likely as unmarried men to have firearms. So women are likely to *live* in a household that contains a gun, even if the gun was not purchased in their names. They could still easily commit suicide using a gun (either their husband or father's gun or by purchasing one for themselves). Second, and most importantly, in countries (like the UK) where gun ownership is illegal, the leading (and most lethal) cause of suicide is hanging. In Europe, 54.3% of men 35.6% resort to hanging. So in England, where Emma Watson is from, there are still large gender differences in lethality. Men are more likely to resort to hanging, women are more likely to resort to pills. Both genders have equal access to a *rope.* My opponent has some silly remark that men have easier access to neckties, so they can hang themselves more easily, but that's just silly. So the fact that the gender gap in suicide rates exists in countries where firearms are *banned* completely disproves my opponent's argument. R4) Robin Williams This is kind of just a distraction, given that one person is not going to prove anything for either side. I simply used Williams as an example because he used *two* methods of suicide (hanging and wrist slitting) to ensure he died. My opponent is the one who tries to stake the debate on proving that Robin Williams's death was preventable through other means, which doesn't even matter. The debate is about whether men are less likely to seek help. I linked an article that indicated that Williams was reluctant to seek help. He had sought help for substance abuse, but not for depression. My opponent's claim that treatment for depression is "standard" for Parkinson's *does not appear* anywhere in his source. Depression only occurs in 40 percent of Parkinson's patients [3] and is not constant throughout their diagnosis, so it doesn't make sense to force *all* Parkinson's patients to be treated for depression. And if anything, Robin Williams proves my point through the study I linked that says that men are *better* at and *more likely* to hide their depression from their loved ones, which is a further symptom of their shame (stemming from gender norms). == Conclusion == I have proven the first proposition easily: that men *are* less likely to seek treatment for depression. The second proposition is also easily proven: one reason that men are more likely to commit suicide is because they are less likely to seek treatment. And the last proposition is the easiest of all to prove: the statistics *do* support Emma Watson's position (or at least aren't strong enough to oppose it), so her comments cannot be considered man-hating because they represent a valid conclusion based on the data. Vote Con. [1] http://www.sciencedaily.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://www.pdf.org...