Are you a girl? Why are you upset? Boys are expected to be strong and lead their families without showing emotion. Society has imposed strict norms on how both genders should behave, which often prevents individuals from expressing their true selves and fulfilling their needs. This creates a non-responsive environment where men cannot, and should not, cry, and women can never be feminine or strong enough. This leads to extreme covering of one’s truth with many psychological issues and a lack of vulnerability. This article discusses how expectations and societal ideals transform males to suppress emotions for long-lasting repurcussions.
The ideal man as habituated by culture
Such stereotypes about women can indeed be malicious, but it is not less true that society defines much towards men also. Men are made only to provide for their family; therefore it is a socially designed perspective that they are supposed to be strong, powerful, and self-sufficient. Such characteristics may have benefits, but these keep men from asking for assistance or displaying their emotions. In the U.S., men are four times more likely to die by suicide than women, though they are diagnosed with depression and mood disorders at much lower rates. This gap throws up several important questions. Society often blames men for their struggles, making many turn to substance abuse and violence instead of seeking mental health care. They also face problems over the shift in job perception and gender change, often altering a belief that often negatively affects their health.
The policy of reposing responsibility on the individual has resulted in minimum progress in the implementation of clinical, social, or structural initiatives to bolster men’s psychological health. The focus should be more on how society and healthcare come to engage with and support men rather than how the men are. Primary care doctors, mental health experts, and policymakers need to reevaluate their perceptions regarding the high levels of depression, anxiety, burnout, and substance abuse among men. The prevailing method has limited our ability to offer effective solutions that resonate with men and empower them to thrive, rather than just cope. People still attribute the suffering to the male gender, as they try to get solace and comfort in substance abuse and aggressiveness instead of seeking support. They find it complicated when dealing with changing job markets and roles, which eventually leads to maladaptive attitudes and worsens their well- being. However, blame-giving has not influenced notable improvement in the clinical, social, or structural intervention in improving men’s mental health. Men’s health and well-being in the United States have bottomed out considerably, a situation that was recently compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings are reported to show that during the said period of the pandemic, men reported minimal increases in anxiety levels in comparison to their counterparts in women, but they experienced severe levels of depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts.
Contributing factors included uncertainty during the pandemic, loneliness due to social isolation, financial stress, and relationship problems, all of which presented issues like sleep disorders, substance abuse, and PTSD symptoms resulting from their hospital experiences. As a result, in 2020, the number of male patients seeking mental health services dramatically increased by more than five-fold compared to the year preceding it, outpacing the rise of women seeking help. For instance, by 2021, the National Institute of Mental Health had found that only 40 per cent of men with mental health issues had received care in the past year, as against 52 per cent of women.
Men’s Mental Health: A Barrier Caused by Patriarchy
The health care providers both at medical and mental health levels need to understand the importance of acknowledging and empathizing with the problems of change-of-life in men. There have been research-based findings which show that many men are not able to establish a difference between depression and stress, but they do not understand when they should seek professional help for acute symptoms. The onset of depression may go unnoticed sometimes both by the affected and his or her doctor if it presents as job loss. Traditionally, men were schooled to measure their self-esteem by the money they made for their families. With the increasing trends of the job market away from male-traditional roles, however, they are required to redefine their worth beyond employment, income, and family roles.
The notion of “precarious manhood” is one whereby men perceive masculinity as something that has to be attained and defended, hence perceiving that there is an evaluation of their character in times of economic constraint. Some of the men who achieve what they term as successful levels of manhood end up setting very high standards for themselves and, in the end, experience burnout. The causes of burnout include an imbalance between demands placed upon their jobs and their skills, low control over work, lack of recognition for efforts, and long-term stress in the workplace. The importance of understanding the influence that gender has on the mental health of men lies in the fact that though depression is diagnosed more in women than in men, there is a higher prevalence of suicide, substance abuse, and violent behaviour in men. This would be a signal that better diagnostic tools should be developed to detect depression in males.
Experts suggest that a training program for mental health professionals should also inculcate awareness of how gender may modify the manifestations of mood disorders in the male population. While some providers recognize that men often “present” depression as aggression, alcohol use, and risk-taking behaviours, there is a lack of education regarding differences in mental health by gender which may prevent proper therapeutic intervention for men. While there is no such thing as “male depression,” certain symptoms occur more among males than females. Men have an increased tendency to handle depression through substance use, where they are less likely to speak of their feelings, though men may resort to escapist activities like work.
Conclusion
It is incumbent upon us to recognize the fact that the desire for a mental health facility and men’s support exceeds simplistic accounts of the male psyche and consciousness. It obliterates our thought process of developing holistic reforms toward better mental health care for men. To address this critical problem realistically, we need to opt for a gender-responsive service that takes into account the broader contextual and structural factors shaping the mental well-being of men. Hence, there is a need for the comprehensive evaluation of men’s mental health and shifting the focus towards improving how healthcare systems and providers can better offer effective services which support and improve men’s mental health.
-Hridya Sharma
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