Mental health articles

men health issues bigger While a concern for the health of men has no doubtalways existed in some form in all cultures, men’shealth as a distinct area of critical intellectual and practicalconcern in the domain of public health is relativelyrecent in the West. In terms of research,government policy, and practical programmesand projects, men’s health per se remains a relativelyminor area of concern. Where there is a focus, it tendsto be on such issues as men’s reproductive health ormen’s engagement in anti-social behavior. Additionally,such research continues to be fragmented by salientdifferences of political, social, and intellectual perspective. Historically, the social codes of most peoples havemade distinctions between what constituted a virileman in contrast to a fecund woman, or between a pureor impure man and woman. However, these distinctionswere more in the order of phronesis, or of wisdomconcerning the processes constituting best practicefor relating well with other persons, people groups, orcosmic powers. Increasingly, the distinctions are nowfound in the order of techne, or of knowledge concerningthe processes constituting best practice for workingwell with ‘things’, such as the ‘male body’ or the ‘malepsyche’. However, there is a transition towards reintroducingsalient aspects of phronesis again.

men health issues bigger Late 20th Century Background

It is widely held that where once all people were measuredon the basis of male experiences of disease andillness women began to question this basis of knowledgeand practice with respect to their reproductivehealth in the middle years of the last century. Duringthe political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and1970s in the West, women increasing demanded andreceived limited funds for and credibility from researchthat privileged women’s health more broadly. ‘Progressive’men engaged in commensurate reflections withregard to the psychological origins and manifestationsof the ‘oppression’ of women by men generally, and bythe medicalized professions specifically. Both men andwomen undertook somewhat more critical sociologicalanalyses during the 1980s and 1990s. Concepts such as_ hegemonic masculinities’ and _ expert dominance’were developed as devices for explaining the oppressionof women and at least certain types of men, as wellas the relatively negative health outcomes obtained bythe oppressed.

Throughout this period, the dissemination of bothquasi-scientific and mytho-poeticallyoriented paradigms through various media ensured thatthe general public would be ‘educated’ into the essentialphysiological and, hence, psycho-social differencesbetween men and women. Ironically, these ‘expert’sanctioned proposals of how people should deal witheach other have been extremely popular with the largerpublic (e. g., Gray’s Men are from Mars, Women arefrom Venus). However, these distinctions are not alwaysequally valued by this public or by many health professionals.For instance, the female psyche has become, paradoxically,the privileged template of the human ‘soul’ formany. Ostensibly because of the depredations of ‘hegemonic’or ‘demanding and commanding’masculinities,men are frequently both deemed to be and portrayed assub-standard in this regard. In other words they are considered,for the most part, to be incapable of experiencingand expressing emotions adequately (alexythimia)or of engaging in appropriate self-care. Furthermore,as a result of the perceived unwillingness of westernmales to redeem their deficient ‘souls’, their bodies areconsidered to be doomed first to suffer a variety of typicaldiseases and, then, a premature (hence, meaningless)death.

men health issues bigger Early 21st Century Transitions

Careful research into the histories, literatures and livesof working class, gay, and aboriginal men revealsa much more richly nuanced and variegated ‘tissue’ of_ embodied manhood than is typically acknowledged. This is also true ofmen who have fought in wars or worked in emergencyservices, who have endured experiences of mentalill-health, or who are under and unemployed. Insteadof _pathologising men, these stories support the growingimpetus to take a more positive, primary health careapproach to supporting the way that various men seek tolive their lives personally and communally. Such an approach focuses on helpingthem to identify the knowledge, skills and attitudes thatthey wish to use or gain to achieve their aspirations bothas individuals and members of groups.

For instance, while including stories of selfish ambitionand hatred, the prisoner of war stories from the Pacificthat emerged following World War 2 include recurringthemes of tenderness, self-sacrifice and compassioncollectively organized for the benefit of comrades. Additionally, it is well documented thatthe traumas of those who returned from the wars of thelast century have negatively influenced their familiesfor generations. Governments have conveniently suggestedto these people that it is ‘best you forget’.Westernsocieties typically ignore the economic and politicalsignificance of the processes of socialization that preparemen to fight in wars or to work in hazardous industries.Little regard is collectively given to their contributionto the ill-health of men. Disaggregation of men’shealth statistics indicates that negative health outcomesfor men, when compared to women, tend to be moresalient for such men than for those socialized for otherlife outcomes.

Just as women’s experiences of health and illness cannotbe measured on the basis of male experiences, policyand practical programs aimed at improving men’shealth do not necessarily work well just because theyhave worked well for women. The lack of research intomen’s health in the West has resulted in less evidencecalling for resources to be allocated to this area. Forinstance, even though the mortality rates are roughlyequivalent in industrialized nations, research fundingfor the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer significantlags that of breast cancer in women.

 

Tags: Health, health issues, men health