Crisis in masculinity’ prompts Labour party to consider men’s health strategy

Neuromancer

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Labour is looking at introducing a men’s health strategy to address a “crisis in masculinity” that is costing lives.

The plans could see an expansion in services which offer NHS checks in “men-friendly spaces” – such as sports grounds, pubs and workplaces – alongside efforts to encourage boys and men to be more open about their mental health.

The party is examining strategies rolled out in Ireland and Australia, which have increased male life expectancy, and local schemes in the UK which have offered men health screening in football stadiums.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said he felt “enraged” about failures to tackle male health issues – in particular mental health – with suicide the biggest killer of men under the age of 50.

Official data shows men’s life expectancy in the UK falling at a far sharper rate than that of women. It is now at its lowest for more than a decade.

Mr Streeting told The Telegraph: “I think as a country we have been slow to wake up to the fact that I think it’s quite hard to be a young man in today’s society.”

‘Mental ill-health rising’​

Issues which had impacted young women – such as being bombarded with body ideals, online – were now affecting men, he said.

“I think lots of young men, particularly working class boys, are struggling in school and worried about their futures. And I think that that’s contributing to a sort of crisis in masculinity, with mental ill-health rising, and suicide being the biggest single biggest killer of young men under 50,” he said.

When I heard that statistic, I nearly fell off my chair – it is shocking.”

Last year the Government published the first women’s health strategy, with promises to boost access to hormone replacement therapy, improve the availability of fertility treatment and offer more help for those who suffer miscarriage and stillbirth.

Mr Streeting said he was glad to see efforts to improve healthcare for women, but said more needed to be done for men.

He said: “I have been very outspoken about the fact that it takes seven and a half years for women to receive a diagnosis for a common condition like endometriosis, and outraged that a universal experience like menopause is still treated as if it’s a rare condition affecting an alien species.

I feel just as enraged about failures in men’s health, whether that’s the mental health crisis that’s taking young men’s lives too soon, or the rates of preventable death in areas like prostate cancer and testicular cancer.”

“I will bring that focus to both men’s health and women’s health to government,” he said, confirming that this meant a men’s health strategy was under consideration.

Three in four suicides are by men, with the highest rates among those aged between 45 and 64.

Inspiration from overseas
Mr Streeting said he had been inspired by his visit to Australia in December, in which he met representatives from the Movember movement, which started in Melbourne and raises awareness of men’s health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer and suicide.

The shadow minister has already pledged “to reverse the rising tide of lives lost to suicide” with an expansion of 8,500 mental health professionals and mental health support offered in every school. A pledge to double the number of scanners in hospitals will form part of efforts to improve the diagnosing of prostate cancer, under Labour’s plans.

The party is examining the men’s health strategies in Australia and Ireland, and voluntary schemes in the UK to tackle male mental health and isolation.

Among them are Men’s Sheds — another movement born in Australia – which has expanded into Ireland and the UK in recent years. The clubs bring men together for group activities such as gardening, metalwork and carpentry.

The Australian strategy also sets out a “life course” approach to ensure boys and men are talking about mental and physical health from an early age.
Inquiry into falling life expectancy
The Commons Health and Social Care Committee is carrying out an inquiry into men’s health, which is considering why life expectancy for men has fallen at a faster rate than women’s since the pandemic.

Evidence from the Men’s Health Forum, a registered charity, shows three quarters of premature deaths from cardiovascular disease are among men. The charity said men were 43 per cent more likely to die from cancer, 26 per cent more likely to have type 2 diabetes and constituted 66 per cent of alcohol-related deaths.

Research has found men with prostate cancer are being diagnosed late and suffering avoidable deaths because they have to fight to be taken seriously by doctors.

The all-party Parliamentary group for issues affecting men and boys has called on the NHS to take cancer testing vans to sports grounds and building sites to tackle the “crisis” of early deaths. Pilot NHS schemes have already seen lung X-rays offered at football grounds and sports centres.

Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that since the pandemic, male life expectancy in the UK has fallen by 38 weeks, while for women it has fallen by 23 weeks. This brings life expectancy down to the lowest levels for more than a decade.

The figures for 2020 to 2022 show boys born today will live for an average of 78.6 years and women 82.6 years, down from 79.3 years and 83 years respectively for children born between 2017 and 2019.

Since 2008, when Ireland introduced its men’s health strategy, the life expectancy for men has increased by four years from 77 (2007) to 81 in 2021. It has since fallen by a year. Over the same period, UK male life expectancy went from 77.3 in 2006-8 to 79.3 in 2018-20, since when it has fallen

In written evidence to the Commons Health Committee inquiry on men’s health, the Department of Health and Social Care said the health system aimed to tailor services to different groups in society.

“We know that men are less likely to access health services when they have problems and are less likely to respond to specific invitations to make use of services. This lower uptake of services, combined with a higher propensity for engagement in harmful behaviours, such as smoking, drinking and drug use, leads to worse health outcomes for men,” the evidence states.

However, it said the Government’s Major Conditions strategy would set out an agenda to tackle such issues.

The NHS National Cancer Patient Experience survey found men with symptoms often had to return to their GP several times before getting a diagnosis.

Meanwhile 82 per cent of breast cancer patients only had to see their GP once before being referred for a diagnosis. The figure was just 59 per cent for men with prostate cancer.

The Men’s Health Forum has been calling for a men’s health strategy for more than a year. In 2022 it wrote to then health secretary Steve Barclay urging him to take action.

The charity said such a move “would not only improve the lives of men and boys, it would also improve the lives of women and girls” highlighting disproportionately high rates of suicide, cancer mortality, diabetes and heart disease.

The letter, backed by more than 40 organisations, called for a more “gender-informed” approach to health.


 

Wild self

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Society can’t thrive without men
We are headed in to some dark territories
You can’t just tell nikkas to suck it up and work more
When we are all having existential crises every morning

Truth. Those same "unattractive" and "lame" men are the ones that keep the basic parts of the infrastructure going, like public transportation, being public servants, and providing structure to those that need it. Most women feel like they too good picking up garbage, having a skilled blue collar profession, or even getting their hands dirty so that society at large can thrive.
 

Scustin Bieburr

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Society can’t thrive without men
We are headed in to some dark territories
You can’t just tell nikkas to suck it up and work more
When we are all having existential crises every morning
Sure you can.

The grindset industry is THRIVING. Part of why Andrew tate is so popular is he tells men to just double down on working. Even though Kevin Samuel's literally worked himself to death.
 

Amestafuu (Emeritus)

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Sure you can.

The grindset industry is THRIVING. Part of why Andrew tate is so popular is he tells men to just double down on working. Even though Kevin Samuel's literally worked himself to death.
yes and the way the world is going. nobody will outwork these weakening economies and high cost of living situations. people have to start thinking of ways to break the mold of how we understand life ultimately to exit the grindfest before they are rendered obsolete while still dependent on the system.
 

Kiyoshi-Dono

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Petty Vandross.. fukk Yall
Sure you can.

The grindset industry is THRIVING. Part of why Andrew tate is so popular is he tells men to just double down on working. Even though Kevin Samuel's literally worked himself to death.
No amount of grinding is going to make a man better
That’s the only thing I disagreed with KS on
Every man should just simply do people watching one day
You rarely see older women walking around hunched over on walkers
Look at all the old men
Some have walking issues and other ailments plaguing them
Older men take pride in never missing work while their bodies and minds fall apart
This is the first time in history where men are saying
fukk that, I’m doing what I want before I die
But there is also a dark side to that
Men are lonely because women have drawn a fukked up line in the sands
Instead of dating and marrying men that are not only providers/protectors but actually like them and show character
They let their family, friends, tik tok guide them
Then they get out here and nikkas that’s been through hell and come out the other side
Dog they goofy asses out
Then we get the same song and dance and excuses
So now men of my age are just saying fukk all the noise
I’m good
Then you have a generation of young men checking out or not going into certain trades because they know women are only dating a nikkas job and income and not him
So they go into fields of employment they hate
Yea it gets them money but it’s not what they are really good at or something they really value
Thus men having existential crises everywhere, all at once
This is a societal issue we are seeing at a global scale
What’s sad is nobody is taking it seriously
All men of all color are checking out
 

BaggerofTea

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Great move by the labour party.

if the democrats have any sense they look at something like this in the near future.
 

Scustin Bieburr

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Hoping, wishing, if only women…., women should…, government should…

They never mention work
You're not getting women? You're only working 10 hours a day! Those are rookie numbers what do you expect!

Rise and grind! I'm up at 3am, I run for one hour, meditate for 30 minutes, read 3 books, livestream, and then I go off to work for 10 hours. Then for another 8 I'm working on my side hustle. You need to be a HIGH VALUE MAN or else you'll end up alone, miserable with no women or money!

Meanwhile the men saying that shyt are working a max of 5 hrs a day since they're raking cash in from people signing up to watch their live streams and pay to watch them speak.
 

Wild self

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No amount of grinding is going to make a man better
That’s the only thing I disagreed with KS on
Every man should just simply do people watching one day
You rarely see older women walking around hunched over on walkers
Look at all the old men
Some have walking issues and other ailments plaguing them
Older men take pride in never missing work while their bodies and minds fall apart
This is the first time in history where men are saying
fukk that, I’m doing what I want before I die
But there is also a dark side to that
Men are lonely because women have drawn a fukked up line in the sands
Instead of dating and marrying men that are not only providers/protectors but actually like them and show character
They let their family, friends, tik tok guide them
Then they get out here and nikkas that’s been through hell and come out the other side
Dog they goofy asses out
Then we get the same song and dance and excuses
So now men of my age are just saying fukk all the noise
I’m good
Then you have a generation of young men checking out or not going into certain trades because they know women are only dating a nikkas job and income and not him
So they go into fields of employment they hate
Yea it gets them money but it’s not what they are really good at or something they really value
Thus men having existential crises everywhere, all at once
This is a societal issue we are seeing at a global scale
What’s sad is nobody is taking it seriously
All men of all color are checking out

Yep. Everyone wants to be a damn CEO that dont their hands dirty while playing 'make believe' on social media for an inage of the "perfect" lifestyle.
 

Piff Perkins

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The problem with the grind mentality is that it's predicated on men putting themselves in a hole with bad decisions first, then you have to claw your way out via The Grind and desperation. The things that help you avoid the grind in the first place, like excelling in school and going to college, OR going into a trade, and largely shunned and it's killing men's potential. We need more men working good jobs instead of settling for splitting rent with a roommate and playing videogames all night. The academic fields that men still dominate (finance, business, accounting, engineering, IT, etc) are always hiring. A lot of trades are hiring but struggling to find qualified candidates.

It's not 1970 anymore. You can't fail through life and still end up at the plant making good enough money to buy a house and support a family. I'd argue that we've always had a large group of men who lacked ambition or failed upwards. It's just that the safety nets that used to catch them are gone now. And instead of evolving a lot of men just keep falling. That has to change and frankly I'm not sure what the government can do to fix it. This is about parenting and individual effort.
 

ViShawn

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Men (and women) need a third place to congregate. It's harder because our concept of work and home is blended because many people are WFH now, we can get everything at the touch of a button on our smartphones, and we are more socially isolated. Men are taking the brunt of this for sure and it's affecting society as a whole.
 

AtomicUse

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Men (and women) need a third place to congregate. It's harder because our concept of work and home is blended because many people are WFH now, we can get everything at the touch of a button on our smartphones, and we are more socially isolated. Men are taking the brunt of this for sure and it's affecting society as a whole.
Those are hobbies. Ask most people who didn’t meet someone through work or school where they met their friends or partner and they’ll say they met in kickboxing class, or MMA class, or bowling league, or yoga class, or as a member of a dance class, or bike club or running club.

You need time and money and energy to do those things. Problem is, if you’re the average person now, you work from 8 to 4 and then do your side hustle from 6 to 8 Monday thru Friday and come Saturday do you feel like kickboxing, or biking, or bowling, or do you feel like resting because you have to do it all over again next week? :francis:

Society can’t thrive without men
We are headed in to some dark territories
You can’t just tell nikkas to suck it up and work more
When we are all having existential crises every morning
The system don’t care if you’re living in your car with $20 to your name, you have to get out here and be a cog in the wheel of consumerism. It’s going to extract everything it can or try to find a way to shame you or annihilate your sense of self worth if it can’t.
 
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