Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 September 2012 10:40:41
The BBC reports there has been a slight shift in our society recently; young men are no longer the group most at risk of committing suicide - the group now most at risk are 35-49 year old males. There are a complicated set of factors at which relate to this change and I am glad that the government has set aside some money to do research into how they can improve suicide prevention, (see this Guardian article for detail). I hope that when this research is completed whoever is in government also sets aside the money to ensure the recommendations are implemented.
Partly, thankfully, the rate of suicide amongst younger men has decreased slightly which to me highlights that initiatives such as CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) are working. But there has also been an increase in the rate of suicide amongst those men who are slightly older. Whilst I'm in no way an expert in this field I want to comment on some of the pressures which my male contemporaries may be facing....some of which go across genders and some of which are predominantly male issues.
Often when criticising feminism commentators in this country and abroad have spoken about "the crisis of masculinity" which men have been suffering. I wonder if there is a wider crisis of identity going on which goes beyond questions about what it means to be a man and expands to issues related to parenthood, age, employment and so on. Identity is after all something bound up with a whole load of expectations, real or imagined which relate to environmental as well as personal factors.
Family has fragmented and single parent families now make up around one fifth of families overall in England and Wales (although higher and lower figures exist amongst different ethnic groups). According to Gingerbread statistics the average age of a single parent with dependant children is now is 38.1. It makes sense to assume that the average age of the other parent will be similar. Whether it is coincidence that this fits the age group in question I don't know for certain but from some of the anecdotal evidence I have heard from friends, family and research participants I would think that the pressures these men are under may be a contributing factor.
We live in a society which has vilified absent fathers to some extent over recent years, (see David Cameron's Fathers Day article as an example). Yet the truth of each situation is often much more complicated than we recognise and the financial pressures placed upon men who are paying their maintenance can be significant, (especially if they are also seeking to support a second family). Now at this point I want to be clear I am not seeking to shift the blame onto women or to say that men should not pay for the upkeep of their children. What I am trying to make clear is that men who are not the primary carers for their families have significant pressure upon them as well as the emotional feelings linked to the break up of relationships and not having the same level of contact with their children to deal with. Rather than providing support we, as a society, have sought to apportion blame and stereotype these men in a way which is predominantly negative.
Whilst not seeking to subscribe to the crisis of masculinity theory in the form which it is used to try and push back the advances women have made in education and employment there is something within it that needs to be recognised. The changes in the employment landscape in this country over recent years have had an impact on understandings of masculinity. The job for life in a primary or secondary industry (ie mining, farming, manufacturing and so forth) has gone and it has been replaced with jobs in call centres and retail which have far less security. This older age group are the people who have most had to adjust to this shift in some ways (the old Generation X hinge generation tag is useful to reapply here).
This generation of males were bought up with clear understandings of what their "responsibilities" were at the same time as being introduced to a new world that they needed to consume to be part of (they were the ones that the games consoles, CD players, the Internet and so forth were initially aimed at). Thus, they are the ones who have shouldered much of the personal debt crisis the country is facing as they sought to both provide for their families whilst investing in technology.
At the same time as the shifts above have occurred there have been parallel changes in society which have put more pressure on them too. They are expected to simultaneously invest more in their pension funds whilst contributing more towards their children's education and save to help towards deposits for their children's homes and for their own care costs should they get ill. At the same time they are facing the impact of an aging population. Whilst most commonly thinks of this in terms of caring responsibilities they may occur it goes beyond this. A while back I heard somebody who was outside this age range saying they'd read something saying 60 is the new 40 and pondering out loud, without going any further "where does this leave the 40 year olds?".
What I have sought to do here is illustrate that this group in society who are often viewed as having it all or who are villified from different directions for a variety of reasons (absent fathers, being bankers, media employees or politicians, not being in employment, deciding to strike when they face pay freezes, having taken on too much debt and so I could go on) are facing huge pressures without support being in place. They are often the group who often don't fit any of our equalities or more importantly funding boxes - being neither young nor old and not female, etc. The current economic situation and responses to it aren't making things easier.
So I'm finishing by asking 3 questions:
1) How can we come alongside these men and support them more?
2) How do we ensure that the identification of them as the most at risk group doesn't become used to scapegoat/ shift blame onto other groups in society. For example how do we ensure that misogynists can't use this as evidence of why feminists are dangerous?
3) How do churches engage in serious mission and outreach amongst this group who are amongst their least represented? There has been a tendency amongst all denominations to develop strategies to try and engage with the young or the old...this age group is the generation of people who often went to Sunday School in the '70's and early 80's but then disappeared in the mid 80's and haven't returned. I have explained before that whilst I have little time for Mark Driscoll it is one area I agree with him on.....we need to do more in the church to reach out to and support men. I would add we also need to focus more on this "disappeared generation".