Every year on International Women’s Day, searches for “International Men’s Day” skyrocket, according to Google trends data.
Then the number of searches fall away to nothing, apart from a sad little blip in November, when International Men’s day actually occurs.
International Men’s Day was on the 19th of November this year and it looks as though this trend might be changing, although the data is not yet complete. The searches this month were the same, possibly even higher, than they were for International Women’s Day in March.
I hope this means “men’s rights” groups are beginning to advocate for men rather than against women.
In the past, “men’s rights” groups have focussed on two issues that predominantly affect women – domestic violence and economic disadvantage. They’ve attempted to prove that men are as likely (some claim even more likely) as women to be victims of domestic violence. They’re not.
“Men’s rights” groups fiercely resist what they claim is feminist demonisation of men, otherwise known as researching domestic abuse and finding robust evidence that it is predominantly committed by men against women.
They are outraged by child support requirements, despite evidence that single mothers are the largest group living in poverty.
They often ignore the real issues that damage men. Or worse, they twist them into another attack on women including those trying to escape violent men.
Take the devastating numbers of men who die by suicide in Australia. On average, men are six of the eight suicides each day in Australia. The rate of male suicide has been increasing over the last ten years and it is a national tragedy.
Suicide is a complex issue. As I have written in more detail here, there is almost never a single cause or a simple solution. The myth, touted by men’s rights groups, that #21Fathers kill themselves each week because of the Family Court system is a lie. It devalues the agony of mental illness, loneliness, shame, fear and despair that that are all factors in suicide.
Activist advocating for men would want more information about men’s suicide. They would be calling for better services, closer examination of what services are working or failing, and national attention for suicide reduction strategies.
If, on the other hand, you were attempting to stop women escaping abusive men, you’d advocate against Family Court reform.
So, where were all the International Men’s Day events, forums, cupcake stalls, conferences or media reports last week?
There were a few scattered events, but nothing on the scale of the International Women’s Day, which typically sees an international conference at Sydney Opera House, as well as numerous concerts, rallies, celebrations and discussions all over the country. To say nothing of the books, articles, podcasts and speeches broadcast across the internet. A
It might seem that either that Australians don’t care about men, or that men are in such a privileged position they don’t need a special day of activism.
Neither of these things are true.
IWD events are organised by women, frequently as unpaid or underpaid advocacy. Women have set up and funded not-for-profit organisations and volunteer groups all over the country. They have worked collectively and collaboratively for decades to address the many disadvantages women face and bring them into public debate.
Anyone who thinks this was easy or that it met with no resistance was not paying attention.
Men need activists too – people who will advocate for the services they need and a better understanding of why they need them.
As well as the horrific suicide rates, men are over-represented in most forms of social and criminal harm.
Over the last 18 years, men, on average, have been 64 percent of the victims and 86 percent of the perpetrators of homicide. Men are more likely to be the victims and perpetrators of physical or threatened assault. They die younger, are less likely to complete tertiary education, are twice as likely to be robbed or blackmailed, more likely to smoke, abuse alcohol and use illicit drugs, three times more likely to die in motor vehicle accidents, twice as likely to die from cancer, ten times more likely to be imprisoned, twice as likely to exhibit problem gambling behaviour and more likely to be homeless.
While a small percentage of privileged white men take up disproportionate space in the power positions of parliament, business, sport, the arts, academia, the justice system and the acquisition of wealth, they are not representative of all men. Men of colour, First Nations men, LGBTIQ men, men with mental illness, men living in poverty and men with disabilities are suffering the dual effect of their own disadvantage and the social expectation that they should have power over their circumstances.
International Men’s Day could - and should - provide a forum for men to organise on behalf of their brothers. It could be a day for men to talk about why their gender is so polarised into power and powerlessness, and how they could act together to change that dynamic. It should give them a reason to come together in support, sharing, care and activism for themselves and each other. It could be a national day of mourning for the men who died too young from violence and suicide.
It is a tragedy that men can’t or won’t act collectively to do these things, and is, perhaps, a clue to why so many of these issues exist at all.
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If anything in this article has raised issues for you, please don’t suffer alone. These helplines exist to help you.
MensLine – support and counselling service for men.
24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Ph: 1300 78 99 78
www.mensline.org.au
LifeLine - Crisis support and suicide prevention services.
24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Ph: 13 11 14
www.lifeline.org.au
No to Violence - Support for men who use violence and abuse.
24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Ph: 1300 766 491
www.ntv.org.au
Jane Gilmore was the founding editor of The King’s Tribune. She is now a freelance journalist and author, with a particular interest in feminism, media and data journalism and has written for The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Daily Telegraph, The Saturday Paper and Meanjin, among many others. Jane has a Master of Journalism from the University of Melbourne, and her book FixedIt: Violence and the Representation of Women in the Media was published by Penguin Random House in 2019.
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