Member-only story
Women Attempt Suicide More Often Than Men
But men are more “successful” at it
I come from a family of strong women.
You had to be, if you arrived on the Canadian prairies back in 1913 with twenty-some dollars in your pocket, had no shelter but what you built with your own hands and minus forty blizzards were mere months away.
My baba was no patriarchal princess baking pies while father knew best if you know what I mean. She and grandpa worked like beasts, side by side.
At the end of the day they fell into bed exhausted and made ten kids together. Big strapping farm kids. The ones who lived, anyway.
Didn’t matter who did what. Didn’t much matter who was hacking weeds and who was hauling kids as long the job got done. Just hard working people who behaved like what they were. Partners. In life.
On summer day grandfather fell down in the kitchen and never got up and when Baba tried to sell their grain that fall, men wouldn’t buy it from her. Women don’t get money. Women don’t get to have bank accounts. No.
Damn good thing her eldest was a big strapping farm boy. At thirteen, that boy looked enough like a man that they bought from him. Not her.
