Are we stereotyping our men into mental illness and early death?
In the report of the European Men’s Health Forum’s workshop, 4 October 2013, titled: Step Into No Man’s Land: improving Men’s use of primary care services in Europe.
The report starts with these two sentences: Across Europe, each year twice as many men aged 15-64 die as women. This is major human and financial cost to men, their families, communities, employers and national health systems.
This week, I’d like you to listen to a BBC Radio, Ulster programme which focuses on the term ‘Toxic Masculinity’ and what that term means for men. The contributors are:
Anthony Ellis from the university of Salford and author of: ‘Men Masculinity and Violence’, who suggests that we don’t yet know enough about how the social, economic and psychological factors intermingle so that 95% of people in prison in England and Wales are men.
Mike Buchanan from Justice for Men and Boys, who says: “Toxic Masculinity is an insulting feminist invention.”
Hollie Combe, writer for ‘the F word- Contemporary UK Feminism, who suggests that many of our social expectations of ‘masculine man’ are toxic to men.
