r/TheTinMen

The world loves telling suicidal men to “talk”.

As if saying that four letter word to a man in distress, is the complete solution to all his problems.

But what if research was showing us that the majority of men who died by suicide, did talk, but ended up taking their lives none-the-less?

When does it become time to ask: maybe we’re not listening in the way men want to be heard?

Maybe we cannot hear, what men are already telling us?

Well, as politicians and policy makers drag their feet in asking such questions, an entire industry of ‘social prescription’ organisations has exploded onto the UK mens health scene, to create the spaces men have been crying out for.

And they’re not clinical one-to-one therapy sessions in the traditional way.

They’re DIY workshops, or hiking societys, they’re breakfast clubs, footie games, and talking circles; they’re deep in the wilderness, atop mountains, doing laps of your neighborhood park, and in the backroom of the local pub.

Men are already “doing the work”, building the spaces our politicians have failed to provide.

So here’s a massive shout out to the life saving work of these budding organisations, that so many men call home…

~

Research –

Why men drop out of therapy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34041980/

Suicide of middle aged men https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/ncish/reports/suicide-by-middle-aged-men/

Conversation of ‘male power’ only seems to point the finger one way; upward, at the Fortune500 CEOs, political leaders, politicians and Presidents, who are overwhelmingly men, and is where ‘male power’ is centralized.

And so the angry fist of societal woes is forever shaken at the clouds, and never anywhere else.

The world splutters superlatives at the billionaire playboys, disgraced politicians, and psychotic CEOs, as if such people are emblematic of ‘men’ as a whole.

But take a look around.

How many of the men in your life sit within such thrones of power?

How many men in your life have ratified legislation, negotiated global trade deals, launched an IPO, hosted world leaders, or indeed, started wars?

And if the normal men in your life are not involved with such decisions, then which ones are they making?

Well –

It’s probably along the lines of: what to watch on TV, what to do at the weekend, when are the kids going to bed, whats for dinner, where should we invest our money, and whose turn is it to take out the bins?

These are the every day routines that are familiar to all of us.

And it is here, in the realm of everyday decisions, that a different picture of ‘power’ is painted.

So let’s take a look at what ‘power’ means to the average person, and ask, how much do men really control?

~

Sources

3,000 couples: https://becauseits2015.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/yes-dear-henpecked-husbands-and-one-sided-relationship-dynamics/

PEW https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2008/09/25/women-call-the-shots-at-home-public-mixed-on-gender-roles-in-jobs/

Male power 1975 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Donald-Dutton/publication/15503361_Patriarchy_and_Wife_Assault_The_Ecological_Fallacy/links/00b7d5232780ce1f2e000000/Patriarchy-and-Wife-Assault-The-Ecological-Fallacy.pdf

Men are always the yard stick from which we measure women.

Women’s health, women’s salary, women’s education, women’s life expectency, and happiness; you name it, one way or another, I am sure it’s been measured many times, against men.

Such a thing makes sense.

But when men and boys are reduced to a mere metric onto which to measure women, they are soon dehumanized and forgotten about; for nobody cares about the yard stick, only the thing it measures.

This is the price men pay for being “the default human”.

They are the sea of grey, within which bright, urgently colored dots are scattered.

They are the slice of the pie chart hidden from view, or cropped out of the page; or secret data, tucked away in some anonymous appendix that nobody reads.

It is in this wasteland that men and boys reside.

A place I often go hunting, as I to drag them from the grey sludge, to bring them to life in more infographics than I can even remember.

Because –

We hear about the spectacular benefits men receive for being the world’s “default human”, but is it time we discussed the draw backs too?

What do you think?

~
Bike deaths https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-pedal-cyclist-factsheet-2021/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-pedal-cycle-factsheet-2021

Indigenous deaths https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/jf-pf/2024/pdf/rsd_jf2024_indigenous-overrepresentation_eng.pdf

Iranian deaths https://www.en-hrana.org/a-comprehensive-report-of-the-first-82-days-of-nationwide-protests-in-iran/25/

I don’t care what you read on social media.

I don’t care what you see on TV, or hear shouted out by Sabrina Carpenter, to her 100,000 fans.

I don’t care what you see splashed onto newspaper headlines, or written within that sassy blog you like.

I don’t care what politicians preach, or teachers teach; the undeniable, immutable, and immovable truth, is that the world needs men.

In fact, the world would come to a crashing, cataclysmic halt without them.

Take a look around around –

Think about how many things are made possible by men, and the miraculous infrastructure that holds it all together.

Think about the utilities and resources we have within arms reach; the electricity, internet, food and water, and ask yourself how it arrived there.

The fact that we exist as we do, and have survived as a species for 300,000 years, building this impossible society together, is proof that men and women are not enemies, but a team, and a powerful one at that.

The sad thing is, our society is now so comfortable and seamless, so coddled and easy, that some of us are able to ask – ‘do we need men?’

Such a stupid question, ironically, is only made possible by the incredible, indispensable efforts of men, and saying such a thing is usually the calling card of an ignorant, deeply ungrateful brat, who’s entirely unaware of how much their lives are dependent on the very men they sneer at.

Men are essential.
No less than women.

And it’s about time we reminded the world of that.

Discussing with Truth Temple Podcast

Full podcast here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI2EG1Wz2mM&feature=youtu.be

Legendary politician Keir Hardie once said "conscription is the badge of the slave".

So I must join in other people's frustration to hear Richard Reeves lending his support to the male-only military draft ('in times of war').

As we're all aware -

Richard speaks passionately about American men pushing back against harmful gender stereotypes; but somehow, he himself seems perfectly fine legally mandating men (and only men) into their most primitive and destructive functions – i.e. violence and disposability.

You cannot honestly challenge men to redefine 'what it is to be a man', and then with your next breath, support the Government using men as meat shields in times of war, by holding up a green paddle on a podcast to indicate this is a 'good idea'.

It's not a 'good idea', far, far from it.

The draft is enslavement.

There is nothing righteous or noble about war.

Stripping young men of autonomy, taking them away from their families, and sending them to fight in a war, is not the kind of policy that leaders of this space should be endorsing.

Just look at the last time the draft was used in America, and how it sent more than 17,000 conscripted men to their deaths (and destroyed the lives of countless more), for a pointless war in Vietnam.

If those deaths can't even teach us the lesson that the draft is not a 'good idea', then they truly were in vain.

Keen for Richard to rethink his position on this.