Men's Mental Health in Aotearoa
CONTENT WARNING
This digital story deals with sensitive topics that may trigger individuals. The content involved includes mild explicit images and conversations about suicide and mental health. Remember to be kind to those around you and yourself.
Context: Men's Mental Health in Aotearoa
In gender studies the main focal point is often the inequalities and injustices suffered by women and queer people in society, with men often being seen as the perpetrators of such inequities or even just forgotten about. This is problematic which can be seen through the statistics outlined below as men are 3 times more likely to commit suicide in New Zealand. This is due to a multitude of reasons, the most prominent being that men are less likely to speak up or reach out for help. Society prunes men to believe that they should be able to handle the problems themselves or to 'harden up'.
The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci as seen throughout a portion of this digital story symbolizes the 'perfect' man. Anatomically correct proportions were scaled to make the physically perfect man which is harmful to men because nobody is going to obtain these features which makes them try and obtain unrealistic standards. As seen in Gallagher et al's study media such as this and now modern media such as social media are harmful towards men as they often perpetuate the narrative the 'boys don't cry' and men should just 'toughen up' rather than seek help and talk about their problems.
Over the years, many campaigns and organisations have been created to break the silence on silent suffering for men. Movements such as Movember simultaneously raise money whilst creating awareness for the cause and have become an international campaign every year where men show their solidarity for one another by growing a mustache in the month of November. Moreover, sports teams often hold movements to fundraise for and highlight the issues created in a sports environment where men are told they have to be 'strong', both physically and mentally. There has even been a huge campaign in Dunedin where a group of Otago students got together to run the Dunedin marathon in support of the Spark that Chat charity that focuses on men's mental health.
This digital story aims to explore why and how men's mental health is so taboo and examine different campaigns to bring awareness and combat stigmas around mental health for men and suicide.
Be a man of more words
'Be a Man of More Words' short film was made by the Movember charity. Suicide survivors share their farewell notes.
'Men Don't Cry'
Mental health is a subject that many men tend to avoid discussing. An evident sign of this reluctance is the fact that, despite New Zealand males reporting lower rates of depression and anxiety compared to females, men constituted approximately 72% of all suicides in New Zealand in 2020.
While numerous intricate and individual factors contribute to any suicide, psychology researchers highlight the role of traditional masculine social norms, which are the unspoken expectations about how men should conduct themselves. These norms exert a subtle influence on men's mental well-being, affecting how they manifest symptoms of depression and anxiety (such as outward expressions of anger and irritability rather than sadness and tearfulness), their coping mechanisms, increased substance use, and their hesitance to seek help from others.
New Zealand youth perception of mental health resources
The "Do They Chain Their Hands up?" study was published in the New Zealand Journal of Psychology by Jake M . Gallagher, Keith Tuffin, and Clifford van Ommen.
The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci symbolizes the 'perfect' healthy man. Anatomically correct proportions are scaled through mathematics, geometry, and symmetry.
The study endeavored to attain more knowledge from ten cis-gendered men aged between 18 and 30, in the Wellington region of New Zealand. The responses were recorded through private interviews that questioned their sources of knowledge, masculine attitudes toward help-seeking, and beliefs and attitudes toward specific services.
Sources of Knowledge
It is clear from the participant's responses that media has made a major impact on how mental health should be handled. In movies and television, it is common to see women talk to their friends about issues they may experiencing whereas we can't say there is the same representation for men. The common misconception was that men expect therapy to involve 'comfy couches'. Some of the men in this study were fearful and cautious about seeking help, these fears included harmful services, addictive medications, and masculine ideals. A point was also made by the participants that if they needed help then they would go. It is important to mention that these fears may have also come from legitimate harmful services experienced by Māori men.
Masculine Attitudes towards help-seeking
Men from this study took a 'suffer in silence' approach to their mental health with the belief that mental health services were a last resort and that they preferred to fix problems themselves first.
Beliefs and attitudes towards specific services
Participants were in favor of talk therapy without having any experience with it. The primary benefit expressed was that the talk therapy was safe and trustworthy. The effectiveness of talk therapy depended on the man's beliefs about the importance of talking and relationships
The fear of medications was expressed by participants because of the belief that medications led to reliance. The results of this study show that men prefer non-medicated options over others.
Health professional's advice was something that participants were very open to, including taking the professional's advice over their own beliefs.
Conclusion of this research report
This study is important in understanding how New Zealand male youth perceive mental health resources and how New Zealand needs to change in certain areas to drop the stigma of hegemonic masculinity.
Better representation of men's mental health shown in lights of vulnerability is something that can subconsciously change the way men perceive mental health.
Gallagher, Jake M., Keith Tuffin, and Clifford van Ommen. (2022).
Tackling the Stigma
The crowd at the All-Blacks' game against Tonga in September 2019, held a "moment against silence" campaign for mental health on Saturday.
New Zealand Rugby launched the “A Moment Against Silence” campaign to address the issue of mental health and remove the stigma associated with seeking help for mental health problems, particularly among men. The campaign aims to encourage people to speak openly about mental health issues and promote a culture of support and understanding. As part of the campaign, during the All-Blacks match against Tonga at Waikato Stadium, the crowd was encouraged to make as much noise as possible at 2:21 pm to symbolise breaking the silence surrounding mental health.
When Jack Jensen's close friend Reid O'Leary took his own life last year, it completely shook Jack. He found it incredibly tough to cope with the loss, saying it was the hardest, most confusing, and saddest time he'd ever experienced. From this, he created the 'Spark That Chat' campaign.
“On November 24th 2020, the MSFT crew lost one of our own - our boy Reido - to suicide. Like so many others who sadly can relate, this loss came as a shocking blow to so many who loved and knew him. Since Reido I’ve lost two more close to me, Theo and Campbell, and I can’t bear to lose more."
In the interview, Jack Jensen, founder of MSFT production explains that this is happening due to the stigma around the 'hard man' syndrome in young males and the lack of education around being able to be open and honest about the way you feel.
'The Heavy Breathers'
A group of University of Otago students got together in order to fundraise for Spark That Chat to help fight the stigmas of mental health. The group of mostly inexperienced runners consisted of 29 lads, most of those individuals living in the well-known Lake House flat, which was infamous for its lively St. Patrick's Day celebrations rather than its charitable endeavours. They have managed to collect $93,000 through their Give-a-little campaign to support the mental health charity.
Sir John Kirwan Foundation
Former All Black Sir John Kirwan has been open about his personal struggles with depression, and he has used his platform and experiences to help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health and promote well-being. The Sir John Kirwan foundation has worked on various initiatives and campaigns to support individuals dealing with mental health challenges, as well as to educate the public about the importance of mental health.
Data analysis over 19 years
You can see from the graph that as you go from 2000 there were 20 suicides for every 100,000 males. There was a drop in 2002 and a steady curved decline right through the global recession of 2008 till 2012 where the numbers peaked in 2012 and 2017. Overall the rate is on the decline.
Does this mean campaigns such as Movember, SparkThatChat, Sir John Kirwin Foundation, and the Heavey Breathers fundraiser have made a positive change to the suicide rates?
In New Zealand, the suicide rate for men is 3 times higher than for women. Those between the ages of 15 and 24 have the highest rate of suicide, there are many triggers for suicide specifically the media and online harassment for individuals within that age bracket.
Suicide rates are higher in men than women; statistics show that this is largely due to men hiding in their depression.
For women, having a mental illness is seemingly very common. Girls feel they are able to talk to one another about their feelings and worries in order to help them control their mental illness as to their understanding there are many other girls going through the same thing. We open up to one another.
However, for men, it is very rarely spoken about. If a man is to be struggling with a mental illness they will not open up to others as it isn't seen as common within other men to be having these feelings. Due to men not talking about their feelings they bury themselves deeper into such illness.
This is the cause of men having a much higher suicide rate than females, it is not spoken about.
To help men open up about their thoughts and feelings more awareness needs to be brought and men need to be told it is okay to talk about it as it is for women.
In conclusion, it is evident that organisations and campaigns fighting against the stigma around men's mental health have been successful in attributing to the decline of male suicide in Aotearoa New Zealand. Remember to reach out to your friends and family and continue to support local and global initiatives aiming to help the cause.
References:
Depression.org.nz (2023). Men. [online] Depression and Anxiety. Available at: https://www.depression.org.nz/get-better/your-identity/men/.
Earle, James. (2013). TED-Ed. “Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man of Math - James Earle.” YouTube Video. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMsaFP3kgqQ&t=90s.
Gallagher, Jake M., Keith Tuffin, and Clifford van Ommen. (2022). "do they Chain their Hands Up?": An Exploration of Young Men's Beliefs about Mental Health Services." New Zealand Journal of Psychology (Online) 51 (2) (08): 4-14. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/do-they-chain-their-hands-up-exploration-young/docview/2756703518/se-2.
Greene, T. (2023, June 6). Mental health. Men’s Health Week. https://menshealthweek.co.nz/mental-health2/
Kovacs, Lehel (2020). “Male body image made for The Guardian” KOLEHEL. https://www.kolehel.com/work/the-guardian-2.
Movember. (2016). "Movember." https://nz.movember.com/about/mental-health.
Our World in Data. (2019). “Suicide Rate, by Sex.” 2019. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/suicide-death-rates-by-sex-who?time=earliest..2019&facet=none&country=~NZL.
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