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women's rights
Suicide Rates Among Young Men Are On the Rise; Toxic Masculinity May Be To Blame
Masculine representations rooted in ideals that reward toughness, emotional suppression, and dominance are quietly accelerating a mental health crisis among young men.
Sep 02, 2025
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is now the second leading cause of death among males aged 15-29, and suicide rates among young men in the US have risen by roughly a third since 2010. Across much of Africa, where I work as a public health and gender equality practitioner, men make up the vast majority of suicide deaths, and in Lesotho, the country with the highest suicide rate globally, men are dying at three times the rate of women.
Rigid gender roles may be to blame. Masculine representations rooted in ideals that reward toughness, emotional suppression, and dominance are quietly accelerating a mental health crisis among young men. These rigid norms don’t simply discourage boys from seeking help; they actively shame vulnerability, equate emotional expression with weakness, and isolate those who are struggling. In cultures where being “a real man” means staying silent, mental distress festers in the dark. Unless we confront and transform these harmful ideals, any global response to youth mental health will be incomplete—and too late for many.
In many parts of Africa, young men grow up under intense pressure to become providers, protectors, and problem-solvers. These roles and expectations are deeply tied to their perceived worth. But when systemic barriers like poverty, unemployment, or lack of education make these ideals unreachable, the emotional toll can be devastating. With mental health services scarce and stigma-free spaces almost nonexistent, many suffer in silence.
Instead of seeking support through therapy or confiding in someone they trust, many young men cope with inner distress by turning to alcohol, aggression, or silent withdrawal. These internalized ideals of “staying strong” act like slow-burning fuses. Left unaddressed, emotional strain builds until it erupts often into breakdowns, which spiral into isolation, and eventually, into tragedy. Many of these young men appear perfectly “fine” on the surface, attending school, church, or work, making it easy for their pain to go unnoticed, even by those closest to them. While many girls and young women are increasingly accessing mental health resources even in under-resourced settings, young men remain notably absent from these services. In Rwanda, a study revealed that girls are more likely to utilize youth health friendly services than their counterpart boys. This disparity is not unique to Rwanda; similar trends are observed in west African regions, where mental health services for adolescents are limited, and boys often do not seek help due to societal expectations and stigma.
To be sure, women and girls continue to face serious mental health challenges, often exacerbated by gender-based violence and limited access to care. Recognizing their struggles does not diminish the urgent need to address the silent crisis among young men. Both require focused attention if we are to improve youth mental health across societies. Yet ignoring the silent struggles specific to young men is costing lives worldwide.
To effectively tackle this issue, we must address the needs of all adolescents, with attention to those most at risk. This means introducing gender-transformative education that teaches emotional literacy and normalizes help seeking as strength. We need male-friendly, culturally grounded safe spaces in schools, sports clubs, faith groups, and online where boys can be vulnerable without judgment. Mental health professionals must adopt gender transformative approaches that understand masculinity’s impact on behavior.
Above all, media and storytelling must shift the narrative so boys grow up knowing that feeling is not failure. Imagine a generation of boys brave enough to ask for help, a future where strength includes compassion, and manhood means connection, not isolation. This is the future we owe boys and men. No young man should have to choose between silence and survival.
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Inside the Trumpian Plot to Rig the Midterms... and Every Election After
The fate of the American experiment with democracy will depend not on our institutions, but on our collective will to preserve it at the ballot box and beyond.
Aug 28, 2025
With the midterms more than a year away, US President Donald Trump and his enablers have launched a new war on voting rights. Its immediate target is November 2026; its ultimate goal is the institutionalization of one-party control of the federal government. This political “final solution” is the last step in MAGA’s quest to extinguish liberal democracy in America.
The war is being fought along legal and political fronts that stretch across the marble halls of the Supreme Court, Trump’s executive orders, Steve Bannon’s seedy podcast, the transformation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into a latter-day Praetorian Guard, and threats to invoke the Insurrection Act.
The Supreme Court, the Voting Rights Act, and Racial Gerrymandering
When it comes to voting rights, no single institution has been more destructive than the nation’s top judicial body under the hypocritical leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts.
In his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing, Roberts promised to serve as chief justice in the fashion of a baseball umpire, calling “balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.” That was nonsense then, and it’s nonsense now.
Roberts has always been a Republican insider and activist, dating back to his stint in the early 1980s as a crusading young lawyer in the Justice Department, where he wrote upward of 25 memos, suggesting strategies to limit the scope of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the landmark legislation passed by Congress in 1965 to outlaw racial discrimination in voting.
Redistricting experts predict that if the GOP gambit in Texas and elsewhere succeeds, the party could hold the House until 2050.
In 2013, he made good on his lifelong mission by authoring the infamous 5-4 majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, one of the most regressive rulings in Supreme Court history. Shelby gutted sections 4 and 5 of the VRA, which had required state and local jurisdictions, mostly in the South, with histories of egregious voter suppression, to obtain advance federal approval—a process known as “preclearance”—before making changes to their election procedures. Roberts declared in Shelby that “things have changed dramatically” since the passage of the VRA and that racial discrimination in voting no longer took place.
Shelby left Section 2 of the VRA as the last remaining bulwark of the law. That section prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or language. Both the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts have long recognized the right of private parties and organizations to file lawsuits under Section 2 to challenge “racial gerrymanders,” which occur when a state uses race as the primary factor in redistricting to dilute the voting power of minority populations. Civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund have used Section 2 litigation to force the creation of numerous majority-Black or “majority-minority” voting districts to give minorities a fair chance to elect candidates that reflect their views.
All that could change when Roberts and his Republican benchmates hear oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais on October 15. The case stems from a complaint brought by a group of individuals who describe themselves in court filings as “non-Black voters.” They contend Louisiana violated their 14th Amendment rights to equal protection when it created a second Black-majority voting district in 2024 to give Black voters, who comprise nearly a third of the state’s electorate, proportional representation in the state’s six-member congressional delegation. If the court agrees with them, it could gut Section 2, leading to the elimination of an estimated 11 Black-majority districts, all held by Democrats, across GOP-controlled Southern states. Such a decision would neuter what little remains of the VRA.
Political Gerrymandering, Texas and California
Even if the court rules against the “non-Black” plaintiffs in Callais, it has given its blessings to another method of election rigging known as “partisan gerrymandering”—the practice of drawing state voting districts to benefit the political party in power. In 2019, by way of a 5-4 majority opinion penned by Roberts, Rucho v. Common Cause, the court held that partisan gerrymandering, no matter how disproportional or extreme, presents a “nonjusticiable political question” that lies beyond the jurisdiction of federal judges to alter or correct.
Both parties have traditionally engaged in partisan gerrymandering, but the GOP has perfected the technique in the wake of Rucho, with Texas as a prime example. Responding to a direct demand from Trump, the state has drafted a new congressional voting map designed to give Republicans an additional five House seats. Other Republican states, including Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and Ohio, are likely to heed Trump’s plea and revise their voting maps before the midterms.
The GOP’s moves have finally awakened a fighting spirit among Democrats, but the outcome of the counterattack is uncertain. Led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, California has set a special election for this November to consider a ballot proposition that would suspend the state’s current congressional map, which was drawn by an independent commission, and replace it with one that could give Democrats a five-seat boost to match the Texas power-grab. Democrats in New York, Illinois, and Maryland reportedly are exploring ways to follow Newsom’s lead.
Meantime, the Texas redo is a done deal, offering Trump and the GOP a clear path to retaining their stranglehold on federal power. Redistricting experts predict that if the GOP gambit in Texas and elsewhere succeeds, the party could hold the House until 2050.
Trump’s Executive Orders, Proclamations, and Rants
Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s 2024 Roberts-authored decision on presidential immunity (Trump v. United States), Trump has made good on his pledge to be a “dictator on Day One” of his second term, releasing a torrent of autocratic executive orders and proclamations. These include an executive order issued on March 25 with the Orwellian title of “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” Among the order’s many directives is a requirement for voter ID to prove citizenship, and a prohibition on counting mail-in ballots that are sent in by Election Day but delivered afterward.
On April 24, federal district court judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee who sits in Washington, DC, issued a preliminary injunction, blocking the ID requirement and other provisions, noting that “Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the states—not the president—with the authority to regulate federal elections.” Unfortunately, the judge’s order failed to address the constitutionality of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which in many respects tracks the executive order. The SAVE Act was passed by the House on April 10 and is now pending before the Senate.
A permanent one-party state controlled by Trump and the GOP will set back women’s interests indefinitely.
Undeterred by the courts, Trump has doubled down on his demands, vowing to impose nationwide voter ID by presidential fiat, ban mail-in ballots and replace voting machines with hand counting. In remarks delivered at the White House on August 18, he claimed that “mail-in ballots are corrupt,” and no other country permits them. In fact, some 34 countries allow them.
Trump has also demanded a new census that would exclude undocumented aliens to be conducted as soon as possible. The census is mandated every 10 years by the Constitution and is used to determine how many House seats are apportioned to each state. To date, no census has been conducted mid-decade, and never have the undocumented been excluded.
The Impact on Women
The election law changes demanded by Trump and the GOP will also undermine the voting power of women.
According to the Pew Research Center, despite the Democratic Party’s declining approval ratings, women remain 12 percentage points more likely than men to affiliate with the Democrats. Exit polling conducted by CNN after the last election found a similar gender gap, showing that women nationwide voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump by a 10% margin. Black women in particular have been the most reliable supporters of the Democratic Party. In 2024, a whopping 92% of Black women opted for Harris, continuing a decades-long trend.
Women also hold more liberal values than men on a variety of key political issues, such as abortion access, gun control, environmental protection, and racial justice. This is especially true of younger women between the ages 18 and 29. A permanent one-party state controlled by Trump and the GOP will set back women’s interests indefinitely.
Steve Bannon and ICE
On his War Room podcast on August 19, right-wing fulminator Steve Bannon upped the ante in the voting rights war, calling for the deployment of ICE to monitor polling places to ensure that “If you don’t have an ID—if you’re not a citizen—you’re not voting.”
It is, of course, illegal under federal law to deploy the military or armed federal troops to patrol polling places as monitors or observers unless they are needed to repel an armed invasion. A section of the US Code makes it a felony punishable by up to five years in prison to do so. The Voting Rights Act also prohibits federal agents from intimidating voters, and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1868 generally proscribes using the military as civilian law enforcement.
These safeguards could easily be circumvented by an ICE army that will be 10,000 strong by the midterms simply by staging high-profile immigration enforcement operations anywhere in blue cities on Election Day. The intimidation effect would be palpable.
The Insurrection Act and the Final Solution
Should all other options for election-rigging appear unavailing by 2026, Trump will have one final card to play: declaring a national emergency and invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to delay or even suspend the elections. The act provides an exception to the prohibitions of the Posse Comitatus Act, and as Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department will no doubt argue, all other federal statutes.
Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in 2020 in response to the George Floyd protests, and again this past June in response to protests in Los Angeles. Never in American history has the act been invoked to disrupt an election. But if Trump feels sufficiently threatened by a potential loss of power, there is little reason to believe he would not choose to become the first. Nor could we count on the Supreme Court to try to stop him.
In the end, as always, the fate of the American experiment with democracy will depend not on our institutions, but on our collective will to preserve it at the ballot box and beyond. Each of us has an obligation to spread the word and peacefully resist in whatever way we can.
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Beyond Motherhood: Reclaiming Women's Agency in an Era of Control
We must advocate for a society where women's autonomy, choices, and identities are respected and celebrated in all their diverse forms, irrespective of their maternal status.
Jul 16, 2025
I have yet to be a mother, but I froze my eggs a few years ago, and am thankful to have that choice to have a family of my own one day—that ability to have a choice was taken away from a woman in Georgia who was declared brain dead in February, yet kept on life support and forced to carry her fetus until she gave birth this June. This harrowing situation unfolded because hospital officials feared they'd violate Georgia's law banning most abortions after fetal cardiac activity.
A few years ago, after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, some anti-abortion advocates were taking issue with IVF procedures, citing that destroying unused embryos is equivalent to taking a life.
In May 2025, a car bomb exploded in the parking lot at a fertility clinic in Palm Springs. Upon hearing the news, I immediately felt concern for the individuals who kept their eggs and embryos at this clinic. While no individuals or reproductive materials were harmed, the fear was palpable for me, having stored my own eggs in a Massachusetts clinic. This incident was deemed an act of terrorism, carried out by the perpetrator because of his anti-natalist views—his belief that it is wrong to have children.
What all these stories have in common is the insidious attempt to control women—control our reproductive health, our bodies, whether we live or die. They are only the most recent examples of how women's choices are being systematically stripped away.
This societal obsession with motherhood as the pinnacle of female existence not only devalues women who choose not to have children or are unable to, but it also places undue pressure on those who do.
Even the way those in power respond shows a disturbing and deeply ingrained narrow view of women and their choices. In response to the Palm Springs incident, Attorney General Pam Bondi stated in a post on X, "Let me be clear: The Trump administration understands that women and mothers are the heartbeat of America. Violence against a fertility clinic is unforgivable." That sentence, though seemingly innocuous, reveals a troubling worldview. It implies that women are primarily valued as mothers, that our worth as women is intimately connected to our reproductive lives, and our health choices are directly tied to our ability to fulfill this singular role.
Yet, there are myriad valid reasons why a woman may never have children: health issues, infertility, personal choice, not finding a suitable partner, or socioeconomic instability, to name a few. Despite this, the current Trump administration and the conservative faction in our country seem fixated on justifying womanhood solely through the lens of motherhood. This reductive stance is evidenced by Vice President JD Vance's dismissive "childless cat lady" comment, where he questioned the stake of childless individuals in the nation's future, and further underscored by the Trump administration's proposals for 'baby bonuses' and tax-deferred investment accounts designed to incentivize childbirth.
Consider the ripple effects of this narrow perspective.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade has paved the way for states to make abortion illegal or incredibly restrictive, fundamentally stripping women of their agency and bodily autonomy. Once pregnant, in 41 states, a woman's body is now no longer entirely her own, but rather a vessel subject to state control.
The very act of bombing a fertility clinic, while deplorable, was deemed so primarily because a fertility clinic is associated with the creation of babies. The outrage stemmed from the perceived threat to potential motherhood, not necessarily the broader violation of individual liberty or the act of terrorism itself.
This singular focus extends to how women are perceived even in death. The Georgia case forces us to confront a horrifying reality: Even when a woman is brain dead, her bodily autonomy can be overridden in favor of a fetus. Her existence, in this context, is reduced to her reproductive capacity, even in her final moments. This legal and ethical quagmire highlights how deeply ingrained the concept of women as mere incubators has become in some interpretations of the law.
Individuals should be valued for more than their potential or actual role as mothers. I do not disagree that motherhood can be a profoundly important and vital aspect of life, and for many, it is. As someone who still hopes to be a mother, it is for me. Yet, I do not know the future, and there is a real possibility that I may never have children. Therefore, to define a woman's entire identity and worth by her reproductive capacity is a dangerous reduction, not to mention emotionally charged for individuals such as myself. Like any human, women are multifaceted beings with diverse aspirations, careers, contributions to society, and personal lives that extend far beyond the biological function of childbearing.
This societal obsession with motherhood as the pinnacle of female existence not only devalues women who choose not to have children or are unable to, but it also places undue pressure on those who do. It limits our collective imagination of what a woman can be and achieve. We must challenge this pervasive narrative and advocate for a society where women's autonomy, choices, and identities are respected and celebrated in all their diverse forms, irrespective of their maternal status. It is time to assert that a woman's life, and her death, should be her own.
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