Men’s mental health week- tackling gender norms
TRIGGER WARNING - mentions of suicide and the gender suicide paradox. The mentions of suicide begin and end at the ** if you wish to skip it.
This blog post will be slightly different from the themes of my normal content, but I still think this is an important conversation to have and to open an honest discussion about. As a teacher, I have taught teenagers and worked with teenage mental health over several years, making this issue very close to my heart. This past week has been men’s mental health week, a week dedicated to men’s mental health and demolishing the stigma around it, specifically linking to men’s gender norms and societal constructs of peak ‘masculinity’. **The gender suicide paradox is an example of this - although females have higher rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviour, men have higher rates of suicide.** These high rates of serious mental health issues in men have been attributed to the increased pressure men face due to gender norms - men are expected by society to be emotionless and strong, and a man that expresses emotions is seen to be weak. These are obviously unhealthy gender norms, as are all gender norms. Indeed, gender is not binary, it is a spectrum, and these gender norms harm everyone. So how can we tackle these gender norms?
The first thing, and the most important thing, is to educate yourself. You will undoubtedly come across someone or something that does not fit into your preconceived notions of the world, and how can we not, when large parts of society and most of education remains very old-fashioned? That being said, some parts of society have progressed at a rapid pace, even from when I began teaching - the teenagers now are very different from the teenagers then. The rise of social media has played a huge role in young people being able to educate themselves better and communicate and interact with people from all walks of life, something I think is amazing.
Another thing we as a society have to do is openly tackle stereotypes. Encourage people to be themselves and be true to yourself. Being conscious of the way you are conditioned into certain roles and to have certain beliefs from a young age is half the battle - now you know they are there, you can tackle them. Stand up to rude and discriminatory behaviour and comments and try and educate others respectfully. Spreading more hate in the world is not what we need now, so make sure you’re doing everything for the right reasons. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself! You are a unique individual and will never fit into all the stereotypes, so the easiest way to be happy is to simply be true to yourself. There are people in the world who will spread negativity no matter what, so you may as well be as happy as you can!
Tackling the stigma around mental health is so important and something I actively try to do. Below is a link to a previous blog post about checking up on those close to you, as it is vital you reach out to loved ones and support them. When checking up on your friends, keep some things in mind:
Be judgement free - everyone is going through different things, so make sure you are listening to your friends issues with no judgement.
Validate their feeling - it can be difficult to know what to do, especially if cannot empathise with your friends problems, so it is important to acknowledge their feelings and let them know everything they are feeling is valid
Do it regularly - checking up on your friends is not a one-time thing and it is something that you need to do regularly. Maybe try and make a recurring plan to catch up or even shoot them a text every now and then.
Mental health issues are just as crippling as physical health issues, and should not be dismissed lightly. There are people around you to support you, and remember, as I always say, asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness!
https://www.zahramerali.com/blog/checking-up-on-those-close-to-you
