Moving beyond Rambo and the Terminator - The way forward for men's wellbeing

When I was asked to attend the Men’s Wellbeing Symposium in Masterton last week, I agreed, but with some reservations as to what I was letting myself in for.

Controversy had preceded this symposium regarding its ‘men only’ status, but as the day proceeded it became evident this was a good decision by the organisers, and also essential if the symposium was to grapple with the question of men’s wellbeing. Women have been leading the way in this area for many years and now we men are trying to step up and catch up.

The symposium started off posing the question, “why are men over represented in poor mental health stats?” and we were challenged to go beyond the usual answers such as ‘men don’t ask for help’ or ‘men don’t talk about their feelings’ and to dig deeper, asking ourselves why?

Sydney-based keynote speaker Professor John MacDonald spoke about the work that’s been done in Australia on men’s health and the need to respond to men differently from women. For example, help lines where often the response to a caller is “How are you feeling?” simply doesn’t work, according to Professor MacDonald. He says that by changing one word in this opening sentence to “How are you doing?”, men stayed on the phone longer and were also more likely to call back.

The lack of male role models in the lives of young boys was also discussed in a session with Freerk Ykema from the Gadaku Institute in the Netherlands. Ykema says around the world, education, for example, had become female-dominated. Those who were male were often the principal or deputy principal and were seen as authoritarian figures, not mentors. With a significant number of young boys having no male presence in their home, male role models were often fictional characters like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator and Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo!

Freerk Ykema also talked about boys’ need for physical activity and how our education system of sitting behind desks is not conducive to a young boy’s learning. So the inevitable result is that the ‘disruptive’ boy who really just needs some physical activity is labelled the ‘problem’ child in class when the reality is, he’s not getting his basic learning needs met.

So, what was the outcome of all our male bonding?

Men need to redefine for themselves what they need to enhance their wellbeing, while services need to adapt and acknowledge the different male and female responses to the same issue or service. Men are not from Venus and women are not from Mars, we are all from Earth, but we do have innate differences and a ‘one glove fits all’ approach to both sexes does not work.

In New Zealand, we quite rightly prioritise our cultural response to Maori and Pacific peoples, especially as these groups feature disproportionately highly in negative socio-economic and health indicators. But we also need to start asking ourselves, in the health and education sectors in-particular, what are we doing to support men and young boys? This is not to ignore the needs of women and girls, but to acknowledge that these services have often developed to meet the needs of women, leaving men unable to identify or connect with them. What we need now is to incorporate both a female and a male response. When this happens, the question put by the symposium, “why are men over represented in poor mental health statistics?” may eventually become superfluous.

Rob Berg, Development Manager, Suicide Prevention Information New Zealand


Men’s Wellbeing Symposium programme

Associate Minister of Health Peter Dunne’s opening speech at the Men’s Wellbeing Symposium.