
Fewer Murders, More Suicide? - alexandros
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/fewer-murders-more-suicide/
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lionhearted
I've been reading some science lately on the different biochemistry, hormones,
and mating strategies of men and women. It's fascinating stuff, and it's
unfortunately somewhat suppressed from discussion these days (ex - the Harvard
president being forced to resign).

Anyway, the numbers and science on this is fascinating. First off,
biochemistry and hormone mix changes the behavior of people in society. People
with higher testosterone are more likely to do traditional "masculine"
behaviors (war, chase status, take risks, etc).

Now, hormonal production is somewhat cyclical in nature - whatever you're
using, your body will produce more of. So men who partake in combat sports,
lift weights, serve in the military, and generally act "masculine" will have
higher testosterone. This also includes people to people interaction - guys
regularly in fistfights or trying to dominate/refusing to submit to other
people you'd expect to have higher testosterone.

So a society that had less patriarchy, a less warlike nature, full integration
of workplaces, and so on - you'd expect to have lower testosterone over time.

You'd expect less crime and less violence in these lower testosterone
societies. Then, because men aren't committing crimes or needing to defend
themselves against assailants, their testosterone production would fall off
more. Cyclical.

Not too controversial so far?

Okay. One step further - I've come to believe, from looking at numbers and
research, that when men don't channel their energy into these traditional male
pursuits, both genders' happiness suffers some. From my fairly casual research
- I'm no expert - I think that women have a predisposition to very masculine
men, and men have a predisposition to doing all our dumb guy stuff and
fighting each other and racing towards being masculine. When men become less
masculine, they are less happy. When men become less masculine, women are less
happy. So crime goes down and society becomes more stable, but rates of
depression and suicide go up.

All the numbers I've looked at bear this out. That doesn't suggest a course of
action - there's tradeoffs in society. Violence and crime are quite bad
things, and I'd very much like to see them scrubbed out of any society I live
in. But at the same time, there's some consequences to lower testosterone
production in men that aren't all pleasant. It's interesting to think about
these tradeoffs, but hard to have an intelligent public discussion about it
these days.

~~~
etherael
Somewhat interesting theory, but the article cites examples of extremely high
suicide rates in nations such as the russian federation / ukraine, not exactly
places known for their surfeit of androgynous men?

Of course, this could be accounted for by something entirely different, such
as life being simply very bad there, despite men behaving in manly ways. Men
not behaving in manly ways may just be an indicator of societal happiness in
general, rather than the single overriding indicator.

I'm off to play with my swords.

