{"id":48878,"date":"2019-06-12T05:00:52","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T09:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=48878"},"modified":"2019-06-11T10:37:55","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T14:37:55","slug":"mens-mental-health-and-the-conflicting-demands-they-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2019\/06\/12\/mens-mental-health-and-the-conflicting-demands-they-face\/","title":{"rendered":"Men’s mental health and the conflicting demands they face"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Psychology Today<\/em>, Rob Whitley<\/a> explains the paradoxical demands that men make active efforts to talk about mental health issues and<\/em> to “check their privilege” and shut up:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Men, Please Talk More<\/strong><\/p>\n

Men experience elevated rates of numerous mental health issues including suicide and substance use disorder while showing low rates of mental health service utilization and a tendency to bottle-up<\/em>. This has led many scholars to posit a silent crisis of men\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n

Consequently, many mental health organizations and high-profile individuals are sending out an insistent message that men must talk more about their mental health.<\/p>\n

Even royalty has endorsed this message, with HRH Prince William stating in a recent documentary that we need to “pass the message onto men everywhere that it\u2019s okay to talk about mental health\u2026 and be able to talk about our emotions.”<\/p>\n

Fine words indeed.<\/p>\n

Men, Please Shut Up<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, other individuals and organizations are sending out a completely different message, namely that men as a group need to remain silent and “check their privilege.” As wryly noted by Bloomberg journalist Ramesh Ponnuru “check your privilege means shut your mouth.”<\/p>\n

Such messages can be seen all over the Internet, with pleas for men to shut-up or stop whining. Of note, these pleas come from both men and women. These echo comments men often hear in face-to-face interactions, even from their intimates and their employers. <\/p>\n

Indeed, such perspectives can emanate from high places, including the U.S. Senate, with Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono recently stating, “I just want to say to the men in this country: just shut up and step up. Do the right thing for a change.” For some, male silence is a sign of moral rectitude.<\/p>\n

This situation creates a men\u2019s mental health double-bind. On the one hand, men are being told to talk more and open-up; on the other hand, men are being told to check their privilege and be silent. This can only create cognitive and emotional distress. <\/p>\n

Interestingly, the men’s mental health double-bind manifests itself beyond the borders of the U.S. As such, examples from the U.K and Canada are given below to illustrate its global nature.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Psychology Today, Rob Whitley explains the paradoxical demands that men make active efforts to talk about mental health issues and to “check their privilege” and shut up: Men, Please Talk More Men experience elevated rates of numerous mental health issues including suicide and substance use disorder while showing low rates of mental health service […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,28,53,13],"tags":[906,912,139,519],"class_list":["post-48878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-science","category-media","category-politics","category-usa","tag-mentalhealth","tag-privilege","tag-psychology","tag-stress"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-cIm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48880,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48878\/revisions\/48880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}