10/06/2026
I'm going to say this carefully because this is a tremendously serious issue and every individual circumstance must be respected regardless of what the 'averages' are.
In fact if anything its the exceptions to the 'expected' that require the most support, because they are usually met with the least understanding.
This image is how The Age have framed a new campaign to highlight female su***de as a result of domestic abuse.
I'm all in favour of raising awareness of this issue, I've seen with my own eyes women being pushed to breaking point by husbands who abused them, sometimes physically but often not, often the abuse was psychological, financial, controlling behavious, gaslighting... women can be abused in far more ways than just physical.
This issue is real and serious and im not against The Age using thrir reach to highlight it.
But what is ALSO real and serious is that men are 3x more likely to take their own lives on average, and a LOT of those are due to... abuse from their wives or ex wives, again often not physical (although it can be), but usually psychological, emotional, financial... and often with the use of children as leverage.
In particular there is a direct link between the weaponisation of police and family courts against fathers to remove them from their own children's lives, and male su***de.
Uncomfortable yet? I hope you are.
Because if we should care about abuse driven female su***de (and we should) then we should also care about abuse driven male su***de, and if that upsets you then perhaps you need to reflect on your double standard.
Yes abuse in one direction often looks very different to abuse in the other, but in a world where laws are being written about things like 'coercive control' within intimate relationships we can no longer ignore the weaponisation of the state and the family courts against fathers, nor can we ignore the terrible death toll that follows.
I welcome The Age raising the issue on behalf of women, we definitely need to have this conversation, be aware, be ready to support women to help them out of terrible situations, and to hold abusers accountable.
I'm 100% in agreement with all of that.
But given the statistics on su***de, I'm therefore 300% in support of extending the same care, support, and awareness to the inverse issue, especially given that the abuse of fathers is so often done with the aid of the state and on the taxpayer's dime.
But what are the chances of The Age being willing to have THAT conversation?
