Remember, Remember the Month of Movember

Some people might wonder why Movember is important to me, and why I would draw a false moustache upon my lip in aid of it. Movember is a wonderful charity, started in a rather weird and hilarious way which you can read about here. The charity supports Prostate and Testicular Cancer research, as well as Men’s Mental Health. Of course cancer is a very worthy cause, but the reason I am 100% behind Movember is because of men’s mental health.

To help illustrate why I’m going to list below recent statistics about men’s mental health in the UK:

• Suicide remains the most common cause of death in men under the age of 35 (Five Years On, Department Of Health, 2005).
• Women are more likely to have been treated for a mental health problem than men (29% compared to 17%).This could be because, when asked, women are more likely to report symptoms of common mental health problems. (Better Or Worse: A Longitudinal Study Of The Mental Health Of Adults In Great Britain, National Statistics, 2003)
• British men are three times as likely as British women to die by suicide (Samaritans Information Resource Pack, 2004).
• From the Movember website.
  

Clearly we can see that self-defining women are more likely to have been treated for mental health issues than self-defining men, but British men are three times as likely to die by suicide than women. There appears to be a paradox here and while some have suggested that it is likely to be because men typically use more violent methods to commit suicide than women, it still doesn’t explain why so many men are committing suicide, but not seeking professional help.

My personal opinion is that this divide is caused by our patriarchal societal norms.  If men are encouraged from birth to be strong, to be providers, not to cry and to repress emotions, how do you imagine they would react when confronted with a potentially debilitating mental health issue? Whereas by contrast women are encouraged to talk about their “feelings” and to be emotionally supportive of one another. I will reiterate that this is only my opinion and a theory, let me know if you have any other opinions regarding this issue!

I will conclude by encouraging you all, men and women, feminists and non-feminists to support this wonderful cause! November is not over yet, you still have time to get your #mo on.