It's a bit unclear why it's particularly worrying that women might eventually have a suicide rate of X if a trend continues while men actually do have a suicide rate of X and have had that for decades.

Because for every X suicides there are Y attempts, and that Y is statistically greater for women than it is for men (men generally tend to choose more lethal methods of suicide).

Why should we weight the life of a person who attempts to kill themselves three times as three times as valuable as the life of someone who succeeds on the first attempt?

Even within a given category of method of suicide, men have a greater success rate. Places where the most efficacious method of killing yourself (guns) are banned still maintain a ~3:1 male:female suicide death ratio.

A naive read on suicide attempt:success rates suggest that men are literally 10x as effective of women in achieving their aims. That's the kind of ratio that suggests that there's something big not being captured in the statistics, and in that case it's important to focus on the more objective measure (a death by suicide) than something relatively subjective (a suicide attempt)

Hmmm... then I don't know. Should have clarified that it was more of a guess than a solid answer.

So... Maybe the cause of this surge is just that women have become more effective in their attempts?

Maybe more Japanese women feel lonely and cut off from friends due to Covid. While more Japanese men were already lonely and cut off from friends even before Covid.

Firstly, it's not yoy. It's for one arbitrary month. It's not a trend. And it's insignificant. Suicides make up a tiny percentage of japan's death and population. Sure every suicide is tragic but it's really not a serious problem. Their 30 year economic stagnation and their low birthrate is far greater concern than suicide. It's the washingtonpost earning money by fetishizing japan/suicide and virtue signaling. It's one of the many problems with news. It's not that they report news, they have to manufacture news every single day. On slow news day, it's back to "japan suicides".

Also, wasn't there a study that said news of suicide actually contributed to more suicides? That spamming national suicide hotlines across social media actually increased suicides. That most people, including borderline suicidal people, don't think about suicide until it is broadcast all over news/social media?