Whether it’s neonatal deaths in the first weeks of life, violent crime in adolescence, dying on the job, poor health later in life, or losing the fight against suicide – men die younger.
There are so many reasons for men’s shorter life expectancy, but one thing that seems to unite them – is a lack of compassion and of political will to talk about it.
For there is no strategy for Violence Against Men and Boys, there is no Office on Men’s Health, there is no plan to reform workplace safety, or acknowledgement that 90% of homeless deaths are men.
Advocacy around men’s mental health is toothless, underfunded and mangled by politically motivated bigots.
And little is done to better understand the unhealthy lifestyle choices men partake in.
We saw this blindness of compassion during the pandemic – when it was found that men were three times more likely to go into intensive care when contracting COVID – but did anyone see any targeted action?
No. (And I say that as someone who was commissioned by the NHS to help support other at risk groups – just not men.)
It’s clear and undeniable – men die younger and more often, and in all places on Earth.
And don’t take it from me, here are the words of the World Health Organisation:
‘In most parts of the world, health outcomes among boys and men continue to be substantially worse than among girls and women, yet this gender-based disparity in health has received little national, regional or global acknowledgement or attention from health policy-makers or health-care providers.’
I’ll say it again, we need to let go of this ridiculous gender narrative of male privilege, so we can widen the conversation and learn to share our compassion with men and boys.
We need to confront those who browbeat and intimidate, who start gender wars and set fire to constructive conversation to deny these basic facts of life.
Men die young. And we don’t talk about it.
Source, National Vital Statistics Reports, Deaths: Final Data for 2016: https://tinyurl.com/yvxkb6r3
[1] https://tinyurl.com/fxj8mx6u
Images alois-komenda and suryapriya-saravanan from Unsplash