A Thought Experiment Wherein Coyote Makes In Intersectional Argument, Sort of
The following is a thought experiment:
Modern SJW's argue that it is impossible for one gender or ethnicity or sexual preference to understand another. Taking that as a launching point, there appears to be a crisis in psychology that can only be fixed by government intervention.
Begin with a basic fact: Between 3 and 4 times more men in western nations, including the United States, commit suicide than women. This is clearly a public health crisis of the highest magnitude(1).
Unfortunately, it is getting harder and harder for these men to get the help they need. Most psychologists today, and based on current graduation rates, almost all the psychologists of the future are women. In fact, in 2016 22.4% -- less than one quarter! -- of all psychology graduates were men. Men with existential crises in their lives are not going to be helped by someone woman-splaining the world to them. How can any man be helped by psychologists who can't understand their most fundamental problems(2)?
Take this web page at the top of the google search on mental health and gender. 90% of the page covers only women's issues! There is not even a single mention of suicide or the disproportionate male suicide crisis. This is just further proof that the strong imbalance of the psychology profession to female providers inhibits any focus on or recognition of male issues. You can see from this site that men are not even seeking help --"Women are more likely to have been treated for a mental health problem than men (29% compared to 17%)" -- almost certainly because men cannot find sympathetic male psychological help(3).
As a first step, the government needs to step in and find ways to eliminate the barriers that young men are facing in entering the psychology profession.(4)
OK, I have no idea if this is a credible effort but other than the fact that it is pointing out a unique male issue, I feel like this is at least as viable as any other SJW article I have read. You will note the four tricks I used in the article that are common in many other more serious articles of the same sort
(1) I assert this a public health crisis, but compared to what? Are the deaths a lot or a little compared to other preventable causes. Are the numbers rising or falling? And how preventable are suicides?
(2) This is the underlying assumption in the article, that a psychologist of one gender cannot well serve a patient of another gender. Is that really true? Is there any science on this? I have had physicians of both genders and have not really noticed a difference. Of the psychological interventions I am aware of in friends and family, the most successful was a female helping a male.
(3) This is twisting a fact around the opposite of how most people would interpret it. Most folks would interpret this as women have more mental health issues over their life that they need help with, a finding that seems to be pretty consistent in the scientific literature as well. The clever conspiracy builder, though, can use almost any fact in their favor.
(4) Why do we assume that a gender imbalance is the result of barriers and discrimination, rather than just preferences? Typically, the media treats such imbalances asymmetrically. Professions that skew female such as health care or psychology or education are treated as skewed due to preferences. Professions that skew male such as software programing are treated as skewed due to discrimination.
