This article, "13 Reasons It Is Unlucky To Be Male", originally appeared on Men’s Health Australia.
November 19 is International Men’s Day: a time to promote male role
models; to celebrate men’s contributions to society; to focus on men’s
health and well being; to highlight discrimination against males; and to
improve gender relations and promote gender equality.
As someone who wants both my son and my daughter to flourish across
all areas of life, I am frequently reminded that our society and media
do a particularly poor job of highlighting and addressing areas in which
males face disadvantage. Thankfully we have women’s offices, ministries
and NGOs working tirelessly to improve the areas in which women still
fare poorly. This is not the case for men.
We seem to have a cultural blind spot around men and gender politics.
When a man has a problem, it is frequently seen as his own fault,
whereas women’s problems are more often attributed to others or to
society. For example, we hear that men are to blame for their own poor
health (“men don’t go to the doctor”), whereas young women’s high levels
of eating disorders are blamed upon the cultural pressure to be thin.
The portrayals of men in modern day media are often negative – as
violent murderers, wife bashers, sexual abusers, deadbeat dads, and
bumbling idiots – even though, in reality, only a small proportion of
men act out these roles and behaviours. This compounds the lack of
compassion for men’s issues.
Our society often assumes that ‘men have it good’ and only women
carry the burden of gender-based disadvantage. The evidence strongly
contradicts this. Here are 13 areas in which men and boys need our help.
I would ask that you picture an important male in your life as you read
them – be it your son, brother, husband, best mate or father. Many
thanks to Glen Poole from the Men’s Network in England for the idea for
this article.
1) If we want everyone to live longer, healthier lives, we must address the appalling state of men’s health. Males
have much higher illness, injury and death rates and die almost five
years earlier than females, yet public research funding for male health
is less than one-third of that for female health. National health
expenditure is one third higher for females than for males. The problem
is not that resources have preferentially gone to women, but that health
service provision has been less than adequate at identifying and
addressing the health needs of males. Health services in many instances
serve women and children well but men poorly, in terms of access,
availability, suitability of service delivery environments and service
delivery methods (men are greeted and treated from a female model of
service delivery). Health promotion messages aimed at males are poorly
targeted and often demeaning or derogatory. Until 2010 Australia had no
male health policy or longitudinal national male health study.
2) The health of boys also needs attention. After
the first year of life boys have a death rate 35 percent higher than
girls. In all areas of health status (death, disability, handicap and
illness), boys fare worse than girls. Generally, more boys than girls
have mental health problems, including conduct disorder, disruptive or
antisocial behaviors. Young boys are the predominant reported victims of
physical violence, emotional abuse and neglect from adults and carers.
There is no secondary school testicular cancer self-examination
component of sexual health education for boys despite the fact that
incidence rates of testicular cancer for males aged 15 to 39 are more
than double the rates of cervical cancer in females of the same age
group. Up to one in seven boys experiences child sexual assault before
the age of 16.
3) The male suicide rate is a national disgrace.
1,814 males killed themselves in 2010: more than the entire road toll.
Divorced men are three times as likely to commit suicide as any other
group.
4) Men are raised to be disposable. We socialise
boys to take more risks and place a lesser value on their health and
safety so that men will take on the dangerous but essential jobs:
firefighting, logging, heavy trucking, construction, mining and the
military. In a gender-equitable society we would raise both our sons and
daughters to share this work. In Australia however, the most deadly,
dangerous, unhealthy and risky work is carried out overwhelmingly by
males, and the highest occupational health risks, mortality rates and
disability levels are experienced by poorer men. More than twice as many
males as females experience work-related injuries and illnesses, and
over ninety percent of work-related deaths are males. Australia also
remains a signatory to the international convention exempting “able
bodied males” between 18 and 45 from the ban on forced labour. We hear a
lot about the “glass ceiling” when it comes to women’s employment but
very little about the “glass cellar” when it comes to men’s.
5) Men are more likely to be homeless. Males are one third more likely to be homeless compared to females, and twice as likely to be sleeping rough (homeless).
6) If we want everyone to live lives free from violence, we must address violence against men.
The overwhelming burden of disease from violence worldwide is born by
males. Men make up three-quarters of suicides, two-thirds of homicides
and three-quarters of war-related deaths. In Australia, young men are
three times as likely as young women to be victims of violence, however,
there are no public health campaigns to address this serious issue. Men
make up one third of victims of family violence, however there are
barely any support services for these men, nor treatment services for
abusive women. Some argue that because men are most often assaulted by
other men, the violence they experience is somehow less important.
However, it shouldn’t matter who the perpetrator is. Talking about the
gender of the perpetrator diverts the conversation away from addressing
the needs and experiences of male victims of violence. We don’t
trivialise the experience of lesbian victims of domestic violence in
this way by saying “but lesbians are most often assaulted by other
lesbians.”
7) If we want to give every child the best possible start in life, we must look at the way schools are failing boys.
Fifty percent more Australian females than males graduate from our
universities each year. In NSW, the difference between boys’ and girls’
average Tertiary Admission Rank is almost 20 percent. Boys have
significantly lower levels of achievement in literacy than girls, are
significantly more disengaged with schooling, and drop out more often.
They report significantly less positive experiences of schooling in
terms of enjoyment of school, perceived curriculum usefulness and
teacher responsiveness. Boys are subject to more disciplinary actions
during schooling, are more likely to participate in subsequent
delinquent behaviours, alcohol and substance abuse, and during
adolescence, are 4–5 times more likely than girls to suffer from
depression and commit suicide. Boys are nine times more likely to be
referred to pediatricians for behavioral problems, including
Attention-Deficit Disorder.
8) There is a critical lack of male teachers. The
proportion of male teachers is at a record low and continues to fall. In
2011 just 30 percent of all full-time equivalent teachers were male:
19.3 percent in primary schools and 41.8 percent in secondary schools.
Males make up 2 percent of preschool teachers and 4 percent of childcare
workers. The lack of male teachers may be a strong factor behind the
high dropout and low achievement rates of boys. With so few male role
models and mentors it’s no wonder that boys disengage.
9) If we want to ensure that every child has the best
possible relationship with both parents, we must remove the barriers
separating fathers from their children. Fathers are removed
from their children against their will and through no fault of their
own. The majority of fathers are not granted reasonable access after
contested legal proceedings costing thousands of dollars. Many fathers
are advised not to proceed with custody applications in the first place.
False accusations of domestic violence or child abuse are not
infrequent in attempts to ensure custody of the children. Non-custodial
parents, usually fathers, are then subjected to a system that forces
them to pay “child support” without any system to make sure the money
they pay for the benefit of their children is actually used for such.
The system then refuses to enforce their ability to see their own
children and the children’s ability to see their parent. Parental
alienation, whereby children are taught to dislike or fear the
non-custodial parent is also not uncommon.
10) There is an epidemic of fatherlessness. Of the
five million children in 2009–10, 864,000 (17 percent) lived away from
their father. Of these children, 48 percent saw their father at least
once per fortnight, while 24 percent rarely saw their father (less than
once per year or never). Almost half never stayed overnight with their
father. In 2009–10, there were 366,030 non-resident fathers. Research
from the USA shows that violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy,
teen pregnancy and suicide all correlate more strongly to fatherlessness
than to any other factor. The majority of prisoners, juvenile detention
inmates, high school dropouts, pregnant teenagers, adolescent
murderers, and rapists all come from fatherless homes. The connection is
so strong that controlling for fatherlessness erases the relationships
between race and crime and between low income and crime.
11) If we want parents to be the best they can be, we must do more to support fatherhood.
Until the 1970s dads weren’t allowed to be present at the birth of
their own children. Since then the role of the Australian father has
changed from sole breadwinner to sharing the hands-on parenting and
earning roles with his partner. Fathers are more likely than ever to
require time off work to look after their children’s needs but
government legislation and workplace cultures haven’t followed suit. Men
are still expected to put in long hours and not take time off for
family responsibilities. Women may sometimes find it hard to find an
employer that gives them the job flexibility to care for their young
children, but most men find it almost impossible. Discrimination
complaints by men because of their parental status have more than
doubled in the past decade. The current inequitable parental leave
schemes, favouring mothers, reinforce fathers in the traditional
‘breadwinner’ role rather than supporting them as being ‘hands-on’ dads
(which the research shows gives better outcomes for children). Many
fathers feel excluded by staff and services that appear to be focused
solely upon the needs of mothers. Ante-natal courses for new fathers are
currently run at only a handful of hospitals despite the fact that up
to 10 percent of first-time dads suffer post-natal depression and in
most cases their symptoms go untreated.
12) Males lack reproductive rights. Upon becoming
pregnant, a woman can choose to have the baby, have an abortion or put
the baby up for adoption. A man has no legal right to choose whether to
become a father or even to be notified that he has become a father, even
if the pregnancy came about via deception (e.g. by falsely claiming to
be on the pill or utilizing discarded or stored semen). Men also lack
the range of contraceptive options available to women.
13) We need to do more to protect baby boys from infant circumcision.
Each year almost 25,000 boys under the age of four are subjected to
painful, sometimes dangerous and life altering surgery without their
consent or medical cause. All six major medical societies of Australia
have declared that circumcision of newborn males should not be routinely
performed. The Royal Australasian College of Physicians has expressed
concern that neonatal circumcision may violate human rights. In their
statement the ACP disclosed the traumatic nature of circumcision,
recommending that parents should be given more complete facts about the
procedure. Circumcision has serious risks including infection,
hemorrhage, scarring, shock, penile disfigurement, penile amputation,
and even occasional death. The complication rate for this unnecessary
procedure is estimated to be 2-10 percent. Three Australian states and
two territories have laws that protect little girls from this sort of
procedure but there exists nothing to protect little boys.
Gender equity is not a zero-sum game: this International Men’s Day,
let us remember that looking after men and boys does not take anything
away from women and girls. If we want to create a world where each child
can grow to fulfill their greatest potential, we must care equally
about the needs and human rights of both genders.
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