alt Hacker NewsToo many men suffering in silence, national health report finds (Canada)
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I strongly oppose all comments that seem to have the causal relationship reversed, that somehow by some biological effect they are now more depressed than in the past. I think that instead the extreme demands of society are the cause and that suffering in silence is the result.
What do you expect when most men have been priced out of a happy life? What do you expect when most men are villainized in the stories that dominate narratives in modern media? What do you expect when men are uniquely dehumanized and calling men less-than is okay regarding height, looks, money, or outward masculinity? If anything I am surprised that the numbers indicating suffering in silence aren't worse.
This is a trap, just like it’s a trap when my wife asks me what’s wrong, I give an honest answer, and then I’m scorned for being weak [1]. Men need to cultivate an internal compass. The government can alleviate the issue by stopping the systemic preference of women that they have instituted in education, employment, and law.
[1] To head things off, I’m fine, thanks to a few sessions of therapy a few years back
I think the fact that in general women are considered to have more mental health issues and men committing suicide way more often shows that this headline is true.
I read through the underlying report, but the survey itself is extremely unremarkable.
There were only 12 very vague questions - and none actually asked the respondent about how they felt personally: "Where do you believe stereotypes about masculinity primarily come from?"
Only about 2/3 of the respondents even identified as male - this isn't a serious study of how men themselves feel. It's more of a survey about the public perception of men.
National health reports cannot fix deep-seated cultural issues. I'm sure they'll come out with a nice report on strategies to improve men's wellbeing that won't make a lick of difference unless the world at large starts to shift.
Got my hand slapped by HR for posting Movember stuff or International Men's day stuff. Silence is a learned response.
I don't believe I suffer, but it seems pretty obvious why someone would do it in silence. Many times when I tried to get help from institutions for anything nobody seemed to care much at all. It's like you could either deal with your problems in silence or deal with them "out loud" and have people pretend to care while looking helpless.
To be sure, not referencing mental health here but rather virtually any issue institutions claim to care about.
The birds they sing, At break of day. Start again I heard them say. Dwell not on what has passed away, Or what is yet to ring, Forget your perfect offering, There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.
Things really got worse for me when I got older. It's like at certain point, society just forgets that you exist as a person too.
A lot of the infrastructure got closed in Canada circa 1980s, or 1990s. Some tools are still available - sometimes - and I finally got my diagnosis following through with that, almost 20 years ago now. Anyway, this is partially "there's no tools available to help", and partially a "culture of not talking".
One of the consequences is that - while all of my issues have underlying biological causes (and thus, I can see specialists to mitigate that, somewhat) - I've been on a waiting list for ADHD now for 3 years, with no idea when I'll actually be able to see anyone. Thankfully, otherwise, my cPTSD - I got enough tools in the year after the diagnosis that it's no longer - most of the time - causing any trouble.
Now I was homeless when I started (this IS related to me being able to get help) - but those paths are not easy to get through. That help has been inaccessible to me since I stabilized my housing and employment situations.
So yeah, I'm not surprised. I've met a LOT of people who need more help than they could get ... providing they were open to reaching out. This is entirely related to "homeless epidemic". Mind "shortage of work", "cuts by companies who moved their offices south of the border" are related to this, too.
westcentralonline.com ? Surely there has to be a better link to this report then a small local news website?
Like maybe https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/healthy-livi...
I think this whole discourse is unhealthy and frankly more toxic for the HN community than the political threads. At least those get flagged right away. Time and time again these threads about male suffering/under-representation/discrimination end up being upvoted, with malcontents flocking to them and filling the comments with generalized statements about women, paranoia about divorce rape and of course the ever-present disdain towards feminism.
This is getting really tiring and it's frankly a shame to see the inexorable slide of HN into a sexist echochamber. The irony of it is, I'm pretty sure that a large part of self-victimising posters in this thread were complaining about the SJW oppression olympics just five years prior.
I get where different kinds of bigotry come from; when things get bad, outgroups are always going to be blamed and scapegoated, whether racial or class-based. Yet there’s something inherently obscene about blaming women for the social issues modern society faces. How bad things must be for someone’s designated oppressor outgroup to constitute 50% of the population, people who resemble them and face largely the same problems? Seriously, do all these people who make sweeping generalisations and talk about “women” as some kind of monolithic entity ever actually talk to women or have female friends? It’s bizarre.
Too much emphasis on forming connections and not enough focus on providing ample opportunities to climb the success ladder.
Try solving a difficult problem that has more meaning other than trying to form a problem that is easier solve.
modernity and its toxic feminism is causing untold suffering and increased male suicide
Australian Government did something similar for woman a few years back. The research of which set the foundation for it being assigned national security importance. During that research they found these men issues as detailed here in this article. No action was taken. Only on how it affected woman. Now some action has started, hopefully Canada doing something about it will push them to do more.
GQ has a good article https://archive.is/QmDHJ on https://www.reddit.com/r/BoyDinnerDiaries/
There is certainly more pressure, and workplaces can be a minefield for men. God forbid a man is rude to a woman; it can't simply be "rudeness", it now has to have its own classification of "mansplaining", "toxic masculinity" etc. and therefore a greater seriousness.
I have seen and experienced this myself: in one past company, the HR person openly held the view that if a woman accuses a man of "harassment", it's probably true. In other words, HR itself operated with an attitude of 'guilty until proven innocent' against men.
I was once personally accused of "racism" against people of my own race (but across a political divide) by a former female colleague who was of a different race altogether. Thankfully, this was over LinkedIn chat outside of work where we also worked for different employers. I shudder to think what would have happened if this had been inside a workplace.
I don't blame women at all for this. I don't believe women are perpetuating this OR benefitting from this. This is a worse situation for everyone.
Men feel isolated because they are. They don’t reach out because they intuit being vulnerable will not help them.
Why would we question their feelings??
Male loneliness is a symptom of community breakdown along with growing economic expectations from institutions (corporations and government) that rely on them for revenue and labor.
Smaller local communities do value men’s contributions, but those have been liquidated in favour of Institutional Liberalism.
So as a man, you now *have* to live as an individual. The state is hostile to your interests, the market is hostile to your interests, and, as a group (not individually), women are hostile to your interests.
But as a man you can define your own worth apart from social validation, find other like minded men for camaraderie, and still lead a meaningful life.
I couldn't help noticing the linked report didn't mention religion (at all?). The list of participating organizations listed one church (Renew Church and maybe one other spiritual organization).
We're more than just a body (physical) and a mind (soul), but also spirit. Spirit in the sense of conscientiousness from the divine, or a sense of awe of the foresaid.
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.." ― Henry David Thoreau
It's the nature making decisions here. It has decided to lower the sprawl of human race to rebalance the ecosystem. The nature's correcting forces restore the equilibrium. Governments focussed on worker-driven economy rather than family well-being would naturally force everything towards genderless robotic societies which are ideal for work. European nations even started making policies specifically for punishing people opting to not to work. The world is taken over by powerful new races of creatures - governments, businesses, data and AI. They are nature's agents working to control the human growth. Human race is degraded to an unnecessary biological mass.
It is very difficult to talk about illness, especially chronic illness. It is one thing to break a bone, or need stitches; something entirely different to say you have chronic migraines or POTS. Every time I mention it I fear I'm sacrificing future employment opportunities.
And it goes without saying, if you are disabled you will miss out on a lot, often we are just trying to not make it any worse.
the Western society has adopted capitalism (money is God and money above all), and enjoys Capital when times are good and incomes are high.
However, for some strange reason, the West refuses to use dialectic materialism to explain when times are bad, when males feel lonely or face increased suicide rates.
material conditions explain everything, both when times are good, and when times are bad.
The solution is to obtain (via any means necessary) better material conditions, which might include redistribution by force or political action
Women seem to have this special blind spot for men. It's all "empathy this" and "acceptance that," until it's a man. When they see a weak man, what they feel is disgust. And in their disgust, they try to find reasons to invalidate the suffering. He brought it on himself, or he's choosing to suffer because he refuses to open up, or women are suffering worse, etc.
I think this is an intuitive reaction. It's like being grossed out by dog poop on the ground. You feel the disgust first, and although an evolutionary psychology explanation for that disgust may be true (eg, "you have evolved disgust for dog poop to prevent illness and infection) intellectualizing it further would be totally superfluous. People experience the proximate cause for these sort of evolved behaviors, even when they intellectually know better. If you think you're above this sort of reaction, try "choosing" to be attracted to an 80 year old woman.
https://archive.is/M2Kbe (to avoid the 403 Forbidden and annoying CAPTCHas)
Women are about 1.8x more likely to attempt suicide[1], but men are about 4x as likely to die by suicide.[2] Rates of suicide in female adolescents appear to be increasing at a faster pace than in male adolescents.[3] There is a body of literature suggesting a link to social media.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35598742/
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/data/index.html
[3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11225381/
As a nit in an area where words matter, the title's phrasing of "Too many men suffering" implies that there is a correct number of men that should be suffering.
Wow, all time worst comments section on HN, that's quite an achievement.
> The findings will now help guide the development of Canada's first Federal Men and Boys' Health and Well-being Strategy, expected to be released in early 2027.
It would not surprise me to see protesting over this, as has been similarly done in the past. The person who organized a men's-support-group some years back in Canada, if I remember right, ended up committing suicide after it was forced to be shut down by protestors.
As Charles Darwin deliberated, and concluded... MARRY MARRY MARRY. Q.E.D.
"My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. No, no won’t do.
Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps. Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St. Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D."
The poor mental health is the symptom, not the disease. Men are suffering in the modern economy. That is triggering other things such as failure to start higher education and failure to start families. I work with guys every day who want families but also realize the financial impossibilities. They aren't earning 200k. They do not have rich parents. They will not own a house before hitting 40.
I did a yearly career counseling/updating session with a guy a month ago who's "long term goal" was to buy a dog. A dog needs a yard. A dog needs an owner who is home regularly. So he figured that in the next 10 years he might be able to get a small house and switch to a job with more regular hours. THAT is where depression starts. A good man with a good job and all he can envision for himself is maybe... one day... if he saves every penny... he might get to adopt a puppy.
The answers are not in more government-sponsored therapy sessions. The answer is to improve jobs, to give the working man a future to look for.
This is an issue that us men need to take charge on. While no demographic is immune from engaging in the toxicity that begets the mental health issues plaguing men, men are undoubtedly the worst offenders when it comes to reinforcing said toxicity.
Fixing this will require us to have tough conversations about what it means to be a "man", and to also engage in analysis of the material conditions that ALL people are currently facing in modern society.
The comments are revealing. "Men think...", "women need..." We are caught in a semantic-linguistic trap, debating a false dichotomy and pointing out all the places it has respectively harmed us.
I'd argue there's room for men's issues under (4th-wave, intersectional) feminism. The patriarchy mostly benefits a few at the top, but it has also privileged men disproportionately over at least the last few millennia and if we want to have a real conversation about it we have to have a common set of agreements on which to advance that conversation. We're not there yet as a society, we don't have the language or concepts to make this work on any side of the issue. I guess I'm arguing that some people actually do, but it's where we get into areas of gender deconstruction that start raising sharp objections, which is also part of the semantic-linguistic trap.
Man, this comment section smells like TwoX.
"Men need to be happier but they cannot live in the image they have lived in for the last few eons of evolution."
Good luck with that.
This is results of general misandry culture in the past two decades or three, it isn’t just laws or hard artifacts you can trace and correct, it is the general acceptance that it’s ok to ridicule men, insult them and belittle them publicly and all over media, and if a man objects it he is gaslighted and called all sort of bad names like insecure or whatever, a man in control? God forbid he is controlling misogynistic {insert other terms}, men natural way of doing things are also attacked, from simple ways of how they sit or act all the way to natural instinct for intimacy where men are visually stimulated yet are attacked or ridiculed for it, and many more examples. And unless a major cultural shift happens, this won’t go anywhere, you can look at the numbers and I don’t mean serious ones like suicides but also employments and others, look up female/male hiring ratio in the past year or two, or in jobs where women get shoved into very niche fields for virtue signaling, not because they are indeed competent, and many more. And obviously very little studies about that because whos gonna fund such research? After all, scientists mostly go with their sponsors directions.
1) "Poor men's health carries economic costs"
Yet.. they say a man's worth is "not" the value they put in the bank account.
2) What's deadly about this space is that surveys can be toxic.
Too often, it's researchers looking to slowly understand things, have people open themselves up, then leave them like that, for little to no progress in 5-10 years.
That kind of system needs supply, no?
3) I have heard from some men that sometimes there can be things that only other men understand. That can be similar to women's health issues can be understood differently, or men can feel more comfortable with other men.
4) It's important for authors to try and be aware of their own unconscious biases. Much like medicine is horribly behind at understanding women's health (for example, women hearts are not the same as men's), it means the inverse can be true too, beginning with asking men.
Well because men are physically stronger than women and because some men are wife-beaters or rapists or cheating on their wife, since decades already now there's been a movement to portray all men as raping pigs.
So it's no surprise that young gullible persons (both men and women), after that insane propaganda campaign that commences with kids at a young age, eventually got convinced all men were worthless pigs.
And now, cry me a river, there are national health report findings saying that "too many men suffer in silence".
Maybe it's time we look out as to whom are the actual people responsible for this state of affair?
You cannot spit in the air and expect it to not eventually come back in your face.
P.S: as a sidenote and very, very, very interestingly these same movements that describe men as pigs turn a complete blind-eye to actual patriarchal societies and religions, which is honestly quite shameful.
I blame individualism.
Nobody cares about anyone else hardly at all in Canada.
Male / Female ... makes no difference.
If you can't cut it, there's the street bub. Enjoy your tent and/or shelter ridden by gangs and bedbugs.
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1) Are we sure this is even a male problem? Apparently the percentage who reported "very good" or "excellent" mental health fell from 70% to 52%. What was the answer for women? Turns out they dont ask the question but we know related metrics like anxiety, depression, etc. show a similar trend. What does it say about the views of the Canadian health ministry that they would target this survey at men only?
2) There sure are a lot of people in these discussions who come ready with their diagnosis for men. It's quite the entry-point.
3) Bring back the Boy Scouts
Haven't this been known for a loooooooong time now...? I recall listening to TED talk (silly times) at least 15 years ago already talking about how behavioral pattern difference of seeking help between men/women pointing to this.
By now I would've hoped the conversation have moved from re-recognizing the problem and iterative solution seeking?
Silent suffering of this cohort have for the last maybe 10 years been too profitable segment to milk out of, to actually try to solve the underlying issue. (manosphere for example being one of the vicious extractor of this suffering)
The solution have always had some alignment with the observation that for guys, a sense of belonging, purpose, (and if younger) guidance and healthy rawmodels have been important. It warms me to see how some local efforts have addressed this. How much lively the surrounding became when they installed a free-to-use outdoor gym and football courts, for people to mingle. (and for the older cohort, Frisbee golf court apparently).
It doesn't help that when this conversation comes up, people start to project a lot and inevitably people will start to bring up women (in antagonistic tone) creating a cesspool of bitterness to hijack the conversation.
Predictably, many of the comments here are already about women
A lot of men decrying the fall of man after having been at the top for aeons. Zero perspective or awareness. Everyone deserves positive mental health but that doesn’t mean men need any more power or special treatment than they’ve already had throughout history. More coping skills with reversion to what a normal mean should be.
Men’s happiness and women’s happiness are inversely proportional.
A good start would be enforcing truly gender neutral laws by governments all over the world. I personally know at least a dozen men who have been harassed by biased laws and judges when it comes to divorce. These are good men, who worked really hard and took care of their wives very well, only to get either cheated on or scammed for money and lost everything. 2 of them are even almost homeless now. Most of them have aged so poorly after just 2 years into the divorce. Their wives aren't even homemakers who sacrificed anything who are getting paid, mostly working women who have good lawyers who just abuse the laws to steal wealth. Until this system is fixed, men's mental health will always be down the toilet.
What I really learned from these men is never sign a contract where the other party is incentivized to break it.