I was deeply saddened to learn that the younger of Julie Burchill’s two sons – Jack (29) – committed suicide earlier this week. Today’s Daily Mail piece on the matter is here. Hopefully Ms Burchill will in future have more sympathy for young male suicide victims than she displayed in a callous Guardian article in 1999 – here. Jack would have been around 13 at the time the article was written. We can but hope he never read it, either at the time of publication, or later.
My thanks to Dave for the link to the Guardian piece. Two extracts:
That young men succeed in suicide more often than girls isn’t really the point. Indeed, the more callous among us would say that it was quite nice for young men finally to find something that they’re better at than girls…
To ask me to feel sympathy with suicides after witnessing this (the death of her father from asbestos-induced cancer) is, I suggest, just as unfeeling and ignorant as my callousness must appear to you – like asking a starving African to sympathise with an anorexic. In a society still beset with the most vicious social deprivation and rampant cruelty to the very young, the very old and the very weak, the voluntary exits of a few hundred able-bodied young men each year are best dealt with as private tragedies rather than a public concern. Let them go.
Suicide is the leading cause of death of British men under 50, in all age groups. The male:female suicide rate differential more than doubled in the three decades between 1983 and 2013 – very close to the period in which Jack Burchill lived – from 1.7:1 to 3.5:1. My recent International Business Times article on male suicide is here.
In the case of the average person who’s capable of a healthy(I.e. Normal) emotional reaction I would think so.
However as we all know the irrational feminist types are damaged and highly individuals who have a host of mental or personality problems.
Heartless hag
Perhaps. Or maybe she doesn’t care. With her level of misandry, who’s to say she even loved her son? Maybe she was a big part of why he had depression and killed himself
Wow, I’m sure she regrets her cruelty now.
“That aside, it would be interesting to discover whether Burchill’s parenting played any part in her son’s [sic] decision.”
That is… increasingly likely, if you consider her transmisogynistic politics and see a lot of the infantilizing language she used to describe her child.
Took the word
sright out o’me mouth.Of what are women not the victim?
The woman is terrible!
Hi Attila, great to hear from you. How about the following as an example of anti-male bias? //j4mb.org.uk/2015/07/02/the-harris-review-on-suicides-of-15-24-year-old-people-in-custody/
Mike, the male suicide rates in Canada and elsewhere is at staggeringly shocking proportions, yet, it is ignored while people are busy, worrying about women’s every imaginable issue. Women, who are committing suicide at an exceedingly lower rate.
Here’s another quote from that Guardian article:
“That young men succeed in suicide more often than girls isn’t really the point. Indeed, the more callous among us would say that it was quite nice for young men finally to find something that they’re better at than girls.”
Callousness, thy name is feminism.
I hope at the appropriate time, her comments about suicide are brought to her attention. Perhaps they have slipped her mind.
I feel that in writing this, I’ve “over-commented” but I’ll let Mike Buchanan be the judge of that. I’ve only had the honour (and I do feel it an honour) to have met Mike once but I think he has really scuppered this out-and-out crap which wimmin spout.
You what? It is our society as a whole which is the “victim” of male suicide (insofar as our society suffers for every male who kills himself) and our society as a whole which causes men to commit suicide. Did you mean to say that women are the primary cause of male suicide?
I agree with Paul Jackson. Seems the only person Burchill feels sorry for is herself. Count the number of times she says “me”, “I” and “my” in a single paragraph, talking about her son’s suicide in the papers. Having then attempted to gain sympathy from her friends she then goes on to imply she can’t be doing with them at the moment. Are we surprised? No.
I saw this ghastly woman in my local pub in Brighton, a couple of years ago. It was all my two (male) friends could do to stop me from going over and giving her a piece of my mind. I wish they’d have let me.
Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
Stories like this are so sad and it’s hard to convey the feelings of anger and sympathy at the same time – my heart goes out to Julie, regardless. However, this should be yet another lesson to feminists. Feminist mothers are more intent on teaching and indoctrinating their male offspring to respect and protect other strange women rather than teach their sons how to respect and protect themselves.
It’s women who are the primary victims of male suicide.
Wow!
I doubt that this grotesque woman will learn any empathy for young men from this experience. It’s all about her and her feelings.
She certainly hasn’t shown any remorse for the abandonment of her elder son.
Even if she does undergo a Damascene conversion to a half-way decent human being, she’ll have a hell of a lot of contrition to do, to make up for the anti-male poison that she has spread throughout her miserable career.
I expect the revolting Birchill to be more concerned with the suffering of bereaved mothers than the plight of young men driven to kill themselves (a la Hilary Clinton’s ‘women have always been the primary victims of war’ nonsense).
That aside, it would be interesting to discover whether Burchill’s parenting played any part in her son’s decision.