I live in Australia
The homicide rate here is 0.86 deaths per 100k people per year
Of those, approx 66% are male.
The suicide rate is 12.3 deaths per 100k per year.
Of those, 75% are male.
The statistics are similar in most Western countries.
Pause for a second and think about the last time that you heard that mentioned either in casual conversation or in the news media.
It is not spoken about.
One third of family violence victims are male as well. The government’s policy is that we don’t exist.
I think so, yes, but that’s beyond the point. I don’t think anyone here is claiming or even implying that “Women don’t suffer from issues”, cause well, they do. The point they’re making is that it’s not talked about for men, or at the very least, not nearly as much as it should be.
Yes women do suffer, and that should be treated respectfully and have empathy for, we just think it should be the same for men as well, cause they do suffer from a ton of mental health issues as well.
It does. The point is that 1/3 of the victims have nowhere to turn. Almost all the help is directed at women, with active hostility to male “victims”. This leaves abused men nowhere to turn.
It’s also worth noting that many places have extremely gender biased rules/laws when it comes to domestic violence. The default is often to just arrest the male. This both creates a bias in the data, as well as allowing some women to weaponise domestic violence laws.
Men are also far less likely to be believed, and so report less.
It may well be men are more violent, once these are accounted for, but the bias is far less than the raw statistics make out.
Yeah, also like 97% of murders are done by men, BUT more to the point, if men had good mental health care and had a culture that gave them better mental health outcomes, this would mean a lot of murder would never happen. People think ‘toxic masculinity’ means ‘men are bad’ but that’s not it, it’s that I grew up in a culture where a man saying he mistakenly thought he might actually be gay at one point because a bunch of kids in middle school ganged up on him repeatedly and attacked him for ‘‘being gay’’, was responded to by the other guys walking out of the room and calling him gay. Or when me and one other roommate resolved an argument by discussing our shared religious beliefs concerning Jesus’s words to love one another, the other roommates with the same religion called us fags. These were adult men. Point being, our culture is toxic TO MEN. It’s not doing much besides creating a lot of men who can’t talk about their feelings, and have to be constantly on guard about being attacked for being ‘gay’ by admitting they have feelings or affection. There’s a lot of guys married to someone that will mock them for getting too emotional or bringing up their feelings. It’s often clearly communicated that those aspects of a man are not appreciated, nor welcomed. A lot of guys would much rather feel welcomed and appreciated for being fully human.
It does, but at least where I live, there are systems in place to help female victims of domestic violence. Of course it would be better if there was no violence at all, and more could always be done to help them, but I haven’t really heard of a place where men could go if they’re victims of domestic violence.
There was an article in my country in the news recently about men needing help too. The comments were ghastly. That women need it more and it was because of men, etc. Only one person in those comments stood up and addressed that actually men do need help too and that part of the problem could be to help men to cope and offering support because they don’t have as many options as other groups.
I see an article about it, every now and then. But it’s definitely not something that’s being addressed with a sense of urgency. I guess the attitude that men just need to endure in silence, which I grew up with, is still pervasive. Close relationships with men, where you can talk about emotions, were discouraged, because that’s gay and gay is bad. I know how idiotic and toxic that is, but I also notice how deeply ingrained this is for me. When I see men show emotions, I instinctively think of them as weak. Then I have to make a conscious effort to think how dumb that is. As I think I’m not the only one who was taught this fucked up shit, the only way forward seems to be a generational effort. Each generation tries to bring up their children a little less fucked up until we end up with a somewhat sane attitude two or three generations from now.
You have mountains of work to do if you want societies to realize that men suffer mentally too…
Can’t I just have a molehill of work. I’ve already got a lot on my plate with no outlet.
It doesn’t matter if a lot of people care about something if they don’t fight for these things to happen “society” ie the beaurcratic powers that be in different institutions will not automatically feature your issue. Inertia is more efficient for them. The reason so many minority initiatives have worked is because small but dedicated groups worked extraordinarily hard to pressure “society” to change. It’s Pride month, look at that situation. The LGBTQIA is a small fraction of society, smaller back at it’s Pride origins by far because a lot of people were scared out of their minds to come forward.
I understand that the instinct is to mope, to treat these problems as too big to change but that isn’t healthy. What people need to remember is that just wishing or creating reasons not to try doesn’t make things so. It is an unfortunate issue with straight cis men that they are not primed to organized guerilla social action. In part I think it is because there’s this toxic internal expectation that someone else should be doing that work for you on your behalf. There isn’t. If men want this to happen the movement has to start with men. Other people will join you and help you but they aren’t going to do the basic work for you. That whole “elevate ( ____ ) voices” thing? Men could fill that space but that’s the thing you have to put the work in to create the movement that treats your word as the authentic voice of the concern. Your voice needs to start that snowball effect and you need to make and start executing the plan.
Venting isn’t all that useful on it’s own mental health wise. Get it out of your system but add a second step. Ask yourself what you are going to do about it. Then find people in your area and organize. Be a leader of the movement or support one.
I am afraid that a lot depends on cultural context of the whole society. I don’t think the context is fertile for men’s activism for rights. The groups that exist are almost exclusively misogynist and conservative. I believe that a movement, even if really focused on men’s issues from a general perspective (I.e. not misogynistic) would be received very poorly, will fail to develop solidarity with other groups and would be accused of stealing space to them.
Frankly, I am not convinced at all that each demographic should fight their own battles, I believe in better analyzed demands that will merge under the same front gay rights, women’s rights, men’s rights and so on.
I see both sides. It takes enough men and women admitting there’s an experience that can be improved, and both have vested interests in not improving it. Sadly, behavioral issues are shamed, rather than understood. I’ve known people who were sent to jails, prisons, psych wards, and the family distanced and blamed. Even those who self-harm, even self-unalive are treated with embarrassment, anger, guilt and shame.
Sure, but it’s well worth doing, and can be done by many.
After all, one aspect of all this is realizing you don’t have to do everything yourself!
Yes, we all need to part of the change, if my bro wants to cry, I’ll hug him and tell him to cry as much as he can 🩵🤍, I was told as a kid that I shouldn’t cry because I’m a man, I’m a big boy… F that. I wanna cry so much now… I just can’t… something is not right
One thing I think should definitely be put out there more loudly is that Alexithymia(emotional blindness) is likely very common among dudes. I’m mostly going off personal experience, and how I’ve had issues identifying my emotions, and how I’ve heard some dudes I’ve talked to straight up just say they think they don’t feel things. I suspect potentially most dudes don’t understand how to detect emotions outside of very intense sadness, anger, etc. and I think that they need that communicated and a path they can maybe follow.
My highschool has a club that is basically just group therapy for guys only. As a regular attendee, it kicks ass.
OMG it’s so good to hear that this is changing. Twenty years ago, in college, I responded to flyers around campus about a support group forming. The therapist refused because obviously the support group was only for women. No mention on the flyers. She was surprised I tried to sign up and said I’d make everyone uncomfortable.
I know we have a ways to go but I’m glad there’s even a thought that maaaaaybe men need and can benefit from support, too?
I think the recent lack of male only spaces causes a huge amount of problem for men.
Its about stopping issued not fixing them once they are a problem.
All the male spaces I have been in have had guys opening up and getting support.
But when women are around they just seem to judge men for opening up, or belittle their issues as a joke/ insignificant to women’s, or sometimes they shut it down and blame to patriarchy for not allowing men to open up when they are the ones stopping men from opening up.
To everyone who believes men’s feeling don’t matter the only thing I can say is if my feelings don’t matter then why should yours
I read that as “love and cake” – but yes, that too.
