A silent crisis in men’s health gets worse

Maybe it's not a good idea to predicate any mention of serious men's health issues with initial blanket dismissal / overt acceptance of discrimination and subsequently making it about how it's actually important for these other groups. Even if aspects of that are hypothetically arguable, let the point be made to be important on it's own.

If we had more empathy for one another it would be easier to solve the problem instead of arguing about who suffers most.

We all suffer, we should help each other suffer less.

Belonging to the male sex needs a serious PR campaign.

If men aren’t taking their health seriously I wonder if it could reflect a societal stigma similar to an over abundance of men with similar outcomes.

Feels like we’re in that kind of historical swing at least.

I noticed during the worst parts of the pandemic in the US that the people who decided to not try to do anything to avoid getting it and if they did get it didn't take it seriously were much more likely to be male.

That might explain some of the difference. (Although then it raises the question of why males were more likely to ignore COVID).

> More men die of diabetes than women.

Obesity seems to be a pretty strong contributor to becoming diabetic. Too much excess body fat seems to be a particular aspect of obesity that is involved.

I wonder if women get an advantage here because a healthy female body has a higher body fat percentage than does a health male body? As a man becomes obese and puts on excess fat, the percentage of excess fat will be going up faster than the percentage of excess fat in a woman who is becoming obese and putting on excess fat.

> The cancer mortality rate is higher among men.

I wish they'd have gone into more detail. First, a breakdown by cancer type would be useful. Some cancer risk is associated with behavior, such as lung cancer with smoking. Males are more likely to smoke. Another example would be skin cancer, which is associated with UV exposure. I think males are more likely to have jobs that require being outside all day on high UV days.

Second, I'd have liked to also see the rates for getting cancer rather than just the mortality rate. There are two ways males can have a higher death rate from cancer X than females.

One is that males and females get X at the same rate, but males with X die at a higher rate than females. That would suggest there might be something wrong with how we handle X in males.

The other way is that males get X at higher rate than females, but people with X die at about the same rate regardless of sex. If that's the case then it is how people get X that we need to look it.

There are a limited number of resources (physical, mental, emotional, human, etc.). Most of them have gone towards people that are viewed as being unable to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and soldier through the shit” — primarily women, and children to a lesser degree.

If you were to start supporting men, you would necessarily deplete the already bare resource that is human compassion — and deprive others of it (whether current, by redistribution and reallocation, or future and expected, I.e men’s issues become the new fad, as women’s issues have been, but overtake the latter). One can twist logic all one wants to try to find a way that isn’t true to balm the cruel reality of being alive — it is a constant effort to survive, and make the most of the resources in one’s environment (this goes for all living things).

This couples with the reality that women are more likely to “pull themselves up” via group and social dynamics —- I.e the reason why “women’s issues” are a thing (gravely overshadowing children’s issues, something I find more important, vital, and underrepresented — because children cannot organize together in any meaningful capacity). In contrast to men, who suffer alone and — perhaps — one day find the good fortune of life improving — rather than banding together or influencing others to help fix their own lives.

With all this in mind, I don’t think men’s issues will ever be a “thing” — except some passing fad that halfheartedly and halfassedly “addresses men’s issues.”

The main issue is that life is hard — it’s a constant struggle. The way women and children receive support is different than what men need. Men just need some peace and quiet to sort their shit out - and then do the work to build up their own social support networks (via community and other men) - if they so desire. The most straightforward way to do that would be to improve working conditions, access to sustainable employment, a place to rest that is both peaceful and affordable, and access to good affordable food.

But we all need that don’t we? And the apparently-less-abled are first in line to receive those resources — while men are in the back of the line.

They claim to care about the plight of men who are body shamed, but make small dick jokes, worship traditionally attractive male archetypes, and think it's funny when a pathetic, evil male character is either short, bald, or has a high-pitched voice.

They claim to care about men lagging in education, but pay much more attention to the academic/professional fields that are "boy's clubs" and never talk about "girl's clubs" in the same way, even though nowadays women outnumber male college graduates 3 to 2.

They claim to be all for sex positivity, but continually vilify male sexuality, to the point that men feel scared to express their desires and urges without being labeled a predator/sex pest/-cel adjacent.

The reason men's mental health is so messed up nowadays is that people on all sides of the spectrum seem to implicitly reinforce a traditionally masculine winner takes all culture, where the confident, attractive and aggressive men reap all the rewards. Any reasonable heterosexual male isn't gonna look at this reality of modern culture and think "well, at least I know how to share my emotions properly", when they see the positive romantic attention lauded much more often on those embodying the more stoic, traditional male stereotypes. They'd much rather do whatever it takes to fit into that stereotype so they don't miss out when they're still young. And further, if they feel that no amount of effort will get them there, and they express that concern, they are offered no sympathy.

I think this addresses a large part of the issue well: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-roman...

I spent about 30 minutes typing up a recent experience and how I felt. I deleted it because my urge not to impose is too strong.

I need a dog.

> “We tend not to prioritize men’s health, but it needs unique attention, and it has implications for the rest of the family. It means other members of the family, including women and children, also suffer.”

> Advocates for more research into men’s health say the goal isn’t to steal resources from women, girls and gender minorities.

So men's health deserves to be an issue only because it may impact children well-being, and only if it doesn't steal resource from other more noble causes.

I don't know how US audience reads this type of article, but as a foreigner, it seems every single issue nowadays has to be artificially rebranded as a social justice fight.

This calls for an obligatory Jordan Peterson video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mgDvTew6TXU