November 19th was International Men’s Day, an event that may have passed many by. It was hard to spot many news articles about it, and still less to hear any statements from people in high positions of government or civil society.
Of course, some of this may be seen as arising from the potential for anything focusing on a particular gender to be politically contentious. Just as some might object to ‘International Women’s Day’ without even knowing there is such a thing as International Men’s Day, others may argue that the latter is not needed anyway in a world dominated by men.
However, these arguments and counter-arguments have a lot more to do with matters of political power than some very basic matters of concern to men in the everyday, such as their physical and mental health.
Indeed, while there weren’t any big speeches to be heard from political leaders, the government announced a new partnership with Prostate Cancer UK in a screening trial designed to detect the disease earlier in more men.
The focus on this male-specific disease highlights a common concern about men’s health; that they are so reluctant to open up to others about their issues that they often don’t go to the doctor until it is too late. But this does not just affect physical health. It can be a barrier to better mental health too.
Indeed, for all the men that may be seen in therapy rooms in any given week, month, or year, there will be a great many more who bottle things up, seek solutions in the wrong places (such as addictions), or, in the worst case, take their own lives.
The most recent UK government figures on suicide, which were published in September 2022, revealed that of the 5,583 registered suicides in England and Wales in 2021, 4,129 of them (74 per cent) involved males taking their lives.
Unravelling the causes behind such a discrepancy is a complex matter and many will argue over them, whether it is changing societal and cultural expectations of men, economic circumstances, or something more innate.
The figures did show regional variations in suicides that may have an economic component, with higher rates in less affluent parts of the country. They also revealed that the age when men are most likely to take their own lives is in the 50-54 bracket, compared with 45-49 for women. However, none of these account for such a huge gender discrepancy.
On the other hand, data showing that women are more likely than men to seek help for mental health difficulties is not hard to find. For example, in 2016 the Mental Health Foundation (MHF) revealed data showed that 15 per cent of women had received some treatment for mental health issues, compared with only nine per cent of men.
However, the same organisation has said that when it comes to men’s mental health, one of the first things to note about statistics is that they can be misleading, as they are based only on diagnosed mental health cases. That means a greater reluctance by men to seek help means the extent of their problems can be understated.
It attributed a shortfall in men seeking help to the factors mentioned above; the pressure of social expectations (which is regularly acknowledged as a problem for women but perhaps gets less attention where it impacts men) and the propensity of many to seek ‘solutions’ in harmful ways such as excess drug or alcohol consumption, or overworking.
At the same time, it observed that mental health problems like depression are not fundamentally different in men than women; just that they may manifest in different behaviours, such as increased aggression and risk-taking.
Therefore, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the biggest issue is getting men to acknowledge a problem in the first place.
Some may question what is being done about this. Some might raise an eyebrow at the fact that Mind, one of Britain’s leading mental health charities, did not mention International Men’s Day this year, yet produced an article in connection with National Stress Awareness Day on November 2nd.
Much of the work being done to try to address men’s mental health issues – especially the stigma over opening up – appears to be falling to organisations specifically geared up for this. The MHF noted the example of Men’s Sheds, a charity where men come together to literally build sheds, but create community and open up along the way.
Men’s Sheds states that it has helped 13,728 families by building sheds, but it has surely helped many more by enabling the men in their lives to gain access to health and wellbeing material as well as being able to sit down together and share things in an environment more conducive to such things than the wider world around them.
If you are a man who has been struggling with mental health issues, all this may resonate with you. It may be that you have been feeling the weight of expectations and stereotypes from peers, family and wider society and are struggling with them, maybe feeling a sense of failure, guilt or depression.
At the same time, you may have felt other pressures that tell you to ‘man up’, or take a traditionally British ‘stiff upper lip’’ approach to your troubles to handle what’s going on, all based on the assumption that you have to have the internal strength because this comes with the territory of being male.
Squeezed between these like two sides of a vice, you might feel there is no way out. But there is. It is exactly people like you who can benefit from talking to someone, from getting therapy, and refusing to believe the falsehoods and half-truths on which a load of social stigmas are based.
International Men’s Day may have been overlooked by some, but it is important to acknowledge that his mental health is something no man should ignore. If you need help, don’t be afraid to seek it out.
