Have you heard of Movember? I hadn’t heard about it until a few years ago when I saw ads on the New York City subway encouraging men to grow a mustache for men’s health. For years, the Movember movement has served to amplify men’s physical and mental health each November and all year round.
This cause is extremely close to my heart. As someone who has experienced depression, anxiety, and suicidality firsthand, I am devastated to know how widespread mental illness is among men, how society discourages us from talking about it, and how men themselves feel stifled to openly share their mental health challenges. To give you some context,
globally, one man dies by suicide every minute of every day, according to Movember. And 4 out of every 5 suicides in the United States are men.
This is unacceptable. From an early age, we expect boys and men in our society to conform to impossible, unhealthy standards they never agreed to. Think of the stereotypes most commonly associated with masculinity and “being a man”: Tough. Strong. Stoic. Self-sufficient. Refusing to show emotion or softness. Boys and men are expected to aspire to these standards, but it is impossible - and unhealthy - for any human, regardless of gender identity, to exemplify these things all the time. We humans, regardless of our body parts, are feeling beings and expressing emotions is a natural part of flourishing in our human experience. It is quite literally healthier for us to express ourselves than to keep our feelings bottled up all the time. And yet, this is exactly what we ask and expect of boys and men in our nation and world.
This reality gets even more complicated when you consider racial dynamics.
In the US, the suicide rate for white men — our society’s dominant caste — is twice as high as it is for African American or Asian American men, accounting for nearly 70% of suicide deaths.
Social scientists have shown that the unconscious pressure and social expectation to constantly be superior and better than the rest -- instead of just being, not better or worse -- is taking its toll on white men. This is another way that our racial caste system harms everyone, not just those in subordinated castes. Our social systems place an enormous amount of pressure on boys and men, especially white boys and men, when we expect them to behave in a way that sets that standard for all of humanity. (The books Dying of Whiteness and Angry White Men outline this well.) That kind of responsibility simply cannot live with one group of people.
Conversely, boys and men of color have the highest rates of depression and anxiety.
Scientists explain that the daily indignities of racial microaggressions, gaslighting, and actual experiences of racial bias from the local Starbucks to being on the road, physiologically accumulates as stress in the body, clogging their arteries, and shortening their life spans. For African American and Hispanic/Latinx men, the confluence of historical exclusion, mass incarceration, and police violence add mental health pressures that, unfortunately, due to their gender identity, they are forced to suppress or struggle with silently.
How can we help our boys and men of all colors and backgrounds to truly flourish in the authenticity of their humanity? There are many steps we can take, and we can start early. Some parents treat baby boys differently from baby girls, believing that baby boys should be left to “cry it out” longer in order to “toughen up.” This couldn’t be farther from the truth; baby boys actually face an array of psychological hurdles to development, as Psychology Today points out, and should be treated with tenderness and care.
Similarly, we need to teach our young boys that it’s okay to cry, show emotion, and express themselves, as this is what it means to be fully human.
We should allow boys to cross the boundaries of what we perceive to be acceptable masculinity: to explore their emotional sides, to feel big feelings, and to develop their sense of what it means to be nurturing and caring. And in adolescent and adult men, it is so crucial that we destigmatize therapy, mental illness, and talking about mental health. As I have shared before, for me, the various modalities of therapy were instrumental in reconciling the intersectional damage of masculinity and racial caste.
I share this to encourage men to share their feelings and treat their mental health as seriously — or more seriously — than they might treat their physical health.
Only when men stop being afraid of their feelings will we begin to lift the stigma around discussing men’s mental health and truly make progress.
Personally, I’ll be growing out my mustache this November to honor Movember and raise awareness of men’s mental health. There are plenty of ways you can take action, too. Visit the Movember website for ideas on how to get involved. And feel free to follow the journey of my mustache, in honor of men’s mental health, on my Instagram account.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.