WOMEN'S manipulation of men has been listed by anthropologist Dr Herbert Gayle among the reasons for male suicides, and more so murder-suicides in Jamaica.

"I can't say in the short term that we can begin to change the culture to be less male hostile. It is going to take years. But a part of what needs to be done is to re-socialise not only our males but also our females. Frankly, some of our females are far too manipulative," Gayle told the Sunday Observer, adding that it should come as little surprise that men were killing their women and themselves.

"The country needs a support system for young men. There is a women's centre, a crisis centre - both marked female. Males have nowhere to turn when the pressure reaches them," said Gayle. "The pub (bar) is overworked. The bartender, who is female, is overworked," he said. "I think men deserve more than a bartender as their psychologist. We need to have a centre where men can go to solve their problems."

He added that a part of what was needed was a re-socialisation of girls and boys, men and women in the society.

Last year saw 44 people committing suicide compared to 48 in 2006, according to information from the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN). It is, however, unclear how many of those numbers were murder-suicides. But numbered among the murder-suicides last year was that of Shellese Dawkins and Omel Williams, both of a Rock River address in Clarendon.

BELL... when a suicide occurs there is the likelihood that you are going to have a copycat suicide

According to the police, at around 12:30 am on Saturday, October 27, a passerby came across Dawkins' body just outside the rented apartment the couple occupied on Mount Zion road in the community. The passerby alerted the police, and on arrival they discovered that Dawkins' throat had been cut.

A trail of *lo** led investigators through the couple's home which was ransacked, indicating that the deceased duo had been involved in a struggle, and outside to an ackee tree from which Williams was found hanging from a piece of electrical wire.

They left behind a two-year-old daughter, who is now in the care of Dawkins' parents.

Psychologist Dr Sidney McGill agreed with Gayle's view, noting that murder-suicides were often driven by a "brooding bitterness" on the part of the perpetrator, who was usually male.

"Murder-suicide includes a sort of brooding bitterness and anxiety that is unresolved or unrelieved, and you might have some amount of catastrocising," said McGill. "In other words, everything looks worse than it really is, and so you blame the other person and become paranoid. It gets to the place where there is really no resolution of the conflict in the relationship, nor is there any insight into the long-standing problem."

According to the psychologist, who runs the St Ann-based Family and Counselling Centre, men have a difficulty dealing with emotional issues - more so than women - and as such they are more likely to use violence as a coping strategy.

"The problem I find is that men have a difficulty dealing with strong emotions and so are unwilling to seek help," he said. "Some do, but usually in the company of a mistress or another woman. However, most do not, especially if there is a lot of emotional dependence in the particular relationship that is causing the problem. There is a feeling of isolation, of worthlessness and a feeling of rejection. And so if the person's self-esteem is very low and bound up within the relationship, the person will feel like a non-person."

The result, he said, is that "some men will lash out, or even in a very cool way plan the demise of the person that they once loved and that of themselves."

In this regard, he agreed with Gayle that women have the advantage.

"Women have grown up without restrictions on expressing their emotions and so they are more emotionally developed than most men and pretty much manipulate men and make them feel incompetent and inferior," McGill said.

"Men cannot compete on that level, and the next thing for them to do is to lash out physically with violence. Women have to realise that men's weakness is their sexuality, so women have that sort of power. They also have skills in home management and nurturing so that they are pretty much in charge of their homes, leaving men to feel (at times) that they are strangers in their home."

Gayle said it was past time that society acknowledges women were the ones making significant material progress and often at the expense of men.

"There are a lot of men helping women, and the implications are many - including men killing women. We don't want that to become a pathology. Men need to begin to think about self-investment," the anthropologist said. "Young men need to understand that they are the ones who are important first, and that they need to have something for themselves first before they can help anyone. It cannot be a push up situation, but a pull up."

Psychologist Dr Pearnel Bell did not share Gayle's view, but noted that relationships gone bad were often to be blamed for suicides and more so murder-suicides, while noting that people killed themselves when pain exceeded resources.

"It is that the person is experiencing pain that far outweighs their coping capacity," she said. "If we are going to talk about adult suicide, there are certain conditions associated that can increase that risk of suicide. It could be death or terminal illness. It could also be divorce, separation, broken relationships, stress on family, or loss of a job, home, money, status, your self-esteem or your personal security."

Beyond that, Bell said there was also the need to look out for psychological disorders that could prompt that kind of action. These conditions, she said, included depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism and substance abuse.

At the same time, she said that the society needed to be wary of copycat suicides.

"Usually when a suicide occurs, there is the likelihood that you are going to have a copycat suicide, which is suicide committed as a result of hearing that someone else has done it," noted Bell. "The media play an important role in terms of this type of suicide and should be extremely careful about telling people why other people have killed themselves."

At the same time, she said that care should be taken not to have the story be headline news, even as there should be information on alternatives to suicide included in the reports.
"I have seen quite a few children, since the reporting of the nurse (Carol Waldron) who killed herself, whose parents are very frightened by the homicidal and suicidal thoughts they have been experiencing," Bell told the Sunday Observer, adding that there were also cases of women who had complained of husbands having similar thoughts.

Waldron's body and those of her two daughters - Kadjah, three months old and Ashley Waldron, 14 - were found in a hotel room in Montego Bay on the morning of November 3 last year.

Detectives noted at the time that they had found a suicide note and unconfirmed reports were that Waldron, who was said to be having marital problems, injected the children with a lethal substance before taking her own life. A number of syringes were found in the room.

McGill noted in the interim that critical to resolving some of the issues were communication and respect between the sexes.
"It boils down to respect. If a man does not feel he is respected, then he will feel intimidated and will lash out - and not only in terms of violence but also in terms of finding someone else who respects him more," he said. "Talking is a most effective way of relieving anxiety. Men need to be communicating with someone who is able to give a more realistic perspective on the issues they are grappling with. If that is not happening then you will have murder-suicides.