Suicides Among Teenage Girls

Teenage girls and middle aged men are the two groups of people where suicides are most on the rise. If suicides among middle aged men are due to a mismatch between reality and what we are more or less hardwired to be, namely kings of our own little domains, could it be that suicides among teenage girls are similar in nature?

I'm a middle aged man, so it's easy for me to relate to the sad lot of many of my fellow men. What life is like for a teenage girl is something I can only vaguely imagine. However, using the archetype of the princess, it's relatively easy to see that it must be confusing to be a young woman in today's world.

For starters, where are all the princes and knights? Young men today are encouraged to be irresponsible and focused on satisfying immediate desires. They are not looking for a princess, but a play mate. They have no plans for the future. The state is after all going to take care of them when they grow older.

Furthermore, young women are told that they need to take care of themselves. Their future is one in which they have to work for a boss. A relationship with a young man would be something that comes in addition. There is no economic sense in getting married. It's a frivolous luxury.

But this is not at all what a young woman is hardwired to desire. A princess is supposed to meet a prince. She marries him, gets a small estate from her father, the king, and sets about her life as a wife, a mother, and an investor. Together with her prince, she becomes queen and her husband becomes king.

None of this is possible for the average young woman today. Middle aged men are by and large broke. There is no small estate to hand over to their princesses. Besides, there are no princes. Even if the young woman was to get a small estate, who is she going to share it with? The future that a young woman can look forward to is one in which she may remain an undiscovered Cinderella for her entire life, working for a boss without ever meeting a prince.

A relationship with a man would be a frivolous luxury bearing little relation to her intuitive notion of a good relationship. Young women are not naturally frivolous. They want to be ladies. They desire a prince. But their father, the king, is broke. There are no princes. The future is bleak, looking nothing like what most young women would naturally desire.

Cinderella

By Sarah Noble Ives - https://www.americanantiquarian.org/AabMcL53.htm, Public Domain, Link