It's a little late, but I put this post together for International Men's Day.

​

It’s International Men’s Day! I know, you’ve probably never heard of it and I can’t imagine that you care. I’m going to tell you about it anyway. One of the primary stated objectives of IMD 2018 is to draw attention to the issues (yes, men have problems) that men face in contemporary society. Here are some of those issues:

Suicide: About 45,000 people commit suicide each year. Thats about 125 per day. Thats about 5 people per hour. So, every 12 minutes someone in America commits suicide. 70% of those people are men. Men are 3.5 times more likely to die from suicide than women. Funny you don’t hear much about it.

Education: Boys and young men struggle in school and are falling behind at every educational level. From the get-go, boys are more likely than girls to have “behavioral issues” in school and are more apt to be expelled or suspended. Between 2014 and 2016, roughly 15% of boys between 5 and 17 years of age were diagnosed with ADHD. School aged boys are about twice as likely to be treated with drugs like Adderal and Ritalin than their female counterparts. Young men comprise 59% of high school dropouts. Only 41.5% of all college degrees are earned by men (by 2026 that number is predicted to fall to 40%).

Funny that nobody’s talking about this. Seems like a pretty big problem. Do you think we would hear about it if these numbers applied to women and girls?

Domestic Violence: According to the world’s largest domestic violence research database (The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project), 19.3% of men will be assaulted by a partner during their lifetime (compared to 23% of women). 58% of partner violence was found to be bi-directional (where both parties are active participants in a physical altercation). Women were found to perpetrate uni-directional partner violence about twice as often as men (28.3% compared to 13.8%). Contrary to popular belief, Men and women report similar reasons for perpetrating intimate partner violence.

For obvious reasons, women are, in general, more impacted by domestic violence than men. However, as these numbers indicate, men are definitely affected and domestic violence is not solely a male issue. If we want to stop domestic violence, EVERYONE will likely have to take a bite of that shit sandwich.

Also, there are 2 domestic violence shelters for men in the US. There are 27 shelters for women in Vermont alone. It’s funny you don’t hear much about that.

Sexual Assault: In 2018, rape is still narrowly defined as penetration of an individual without consent. Due to this definition, when you read that men commit 99% of rapes, it’s technically true. A 2010 CDC study (the same study from which the ubiquitous 1:5 women statistic was pulled) found that 1.27 million women reported unwanted penetrative sex in the previous 12 months. The survey also found that , in the previous 12 months, 1.267 million men had experienced unwanted sexual contact in which they were “made to penetrate” another person. Of the 1.267 million men, 80% reported a female aggressor. The 1:5 women stat rightly inspired massive outrage and made headline news across the world. The male victimization stat was quietly swept under the rug so nobody had to think about it. Really FUNNY how you never hear ANYTHING about this. I guess technically those men weren’t even raped.

Again, for obvious reasons, women are, in general, more likely to be hugely impacted by sexual assault. I am not trying to minimize that. However, men ARE affected and, contrary to what we have all been told over and over, rape is not just a male problem. Much like domestic violence, if we want to solve the problem of rape we will ALL likely need to take a big fat bite of that huge, nasty, steaming shit sandwich.

Circumcision: I’m tired and I’m not going to research this. If you are so terrified of the male body and male sexuality that you would, in the first fragile days of your son’s life, put him through a painful and unnecessary surgery that will hugely effect his sexual function and enjoyment and could even endanger his life, then…well…fuck you. Just fuck you.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the issues that men are up against. If you care at all about men, then you should care about these things. Happy international Mens Day.

​

Sources:

https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/high-school-dropout-rates

https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

https://www.the74million.org/article/analysis-why-are-all-the-stories-about-boys-falling-behind-girls-at-school-ignoring-the-forces-keeping-them-there/

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/adhd.htm

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db135.htm#x2013;2010</a>%20

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/current_tables.asp

https://domesticviolenceresearch.org/domestic-violence-facts-and-statistics-at-a-glance/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4062022/?fbclid=IwAR38JgZSjflqg-MECH3rVrxQ9k_5vGO52XSxcBkLekcSJhUHtuPqOONvGEk#!po=30.8219