International Men’s Day

[Pinkyponkcustard]

I don’t get it! My work is making a big fuss out of this today but it honestly makes me roll my eyes in a company where most of the execs and senior management are men.

Am I missing something?! I thought the whole point of “days” was to talk about improving things/raising the profile of minority groups.

Happy to be educated out of my eye rolling!

Well I guess celebrating it is better than spending all of international woman's day moaning there's no men's day....

I hope they make equal fuss on IWD though.

Depends what they are doing and who’s organizing it.

I don’t work so excuse me for only having y husbands employers to give as an example.

For international women’s day they had several senior execs come to the office to hold talks, have a lunch, etc with women only.

Today they’ve done the same for the men.

It’s all about giving them exposure to senior figures within the company. The staff in his office is pretty much 50/50 and this way everyone has a chance to meet and talk to the bosses.

International mens day highlights some of the struggles men currently face within society, suh as high rates of suicide etc. Also used to raise awareness of issues that affect men so prostate cancer eyc

It also should be used as a tool to highlight the privilege men have within society and for them to reflect on this privilege.

What’s wrong with this?

There are issues that specifically affect men (male cancers, higher rate of suicide etc)

Do they also make a big fuss over things like international women’s day? If so, I think there are healthy ways this could be done. Men do face some gender-based disadvantages that it’s healthy to talk about - toxic masculinity, depression, and suicide are all issues that men have to deal with. It could also be a great opportunity to talk about things like shared parental leave, flexible working, how to be a good ally, overcoming unconscious bias etc etc. So I don’t think it’s bad in and of itself. But if they aren’t equally celebrating other activism days, or are celebrating IMD in an unhelpful way, YANBU to be annoyed.

Isn't every day mens day though???

Suicide is now the biggest killer of men aged under 45. IMD is an opportunity to acknowledge this and the struggles that men face, and have conversations about the issues that affect them.

(I'm not suggesting that women don't face struggles - we most certainly do - but so do men. They're different, but nonetheless important.)

Isn't every day mens day though???

Would you say that to a man contemplating suicide?

It’s focussing on mental health this year (not sure if it’s the same every year). The blokes in my office didn’t know about it when I asked them how it was different from any other day of the year. I told them that it meant they had to but the teatime cakes today.

Do your eyes roll in the same way for international women's day OP?

I quite agree with having IMD.

This strange “anti men” sentiment is really odd.

I'm very pro international men's day. My dh took his own life this year and there are definitely some things about being a man that made his life harder. Expectations on him were high from the moment he was born.

Things I love about some of the men in my life: my dad's optimism and lifelong liberalism, my brother's loyalty and ability to put his money where his mouth is (currently housing a refugee at home), my father-in-law's moral courage and integrity and his 24/7 caring for my mother-in-law. All of them love a crap joke too.

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade by pointing out that in fact women in the UK have higher rates of attempted suicide; this tends to get buried and I think it's important that it doesn't. Attempting suicide indicates terrible pain.

@lichtie I don’t I must confess but that’s cos I “get it” for women.
Perhaps it’s about how the day is presented - in my company they have targets around achieving gender equality and having certain ratios of women in senior roles and the day itself it seems to be about that.

@Annandale so sorry for your loss

The only benefit I can see to an international mens day is that it shuts up all the "but when is it international mens day?!" whiners that appear on international womens day.

Other than that however I feel the same way about international mens day as I did about heterosexual pride day.

So you see no advantage in men having a day to recognise the struggles they face?

So not the suicide rates etc? That white young males struggle the most in education? The toxic masculinity that affects them as well?
The fact men are discouraged to take time off for paternity leave?

I've never heard of it, but if it's International Men's Mental Health Awareness Day or something that's probably got a place.

As you say it also serves the seperate purpose of taking the wind out of the sails of INCELS and MRAs.

There's a day of every bloody thing now though, I'm not sure they actually achieve much now every day is international something day.

I also find it very interesting that international womens day is often spent celebrating womens achievements, about how far we've come and celebrating inspirational women.

International mens day however seems to be based entirely around how men have it so much harder and look at how this shows this are the real victims, etc.

Of course we talk about the things women continue to struggle with on IWD and how we still have a long way to go before true equality is achieved. But IMD seems to be based entirely around how men allegedly have it harder and are now apparently the only real victims here.

What did your company actually do?

If it's anything to do with increasing representation of men in a male dominated workplace then they are taking the piss. If it's about men's mental health awareness and things like prostate checks then fine. If it looks at toxic aspects of masculinity then great.

So you see no advantage in men having a day to recognise the struggles they face?

Okay, I'll bite. What struggles are specifically faced by men? I get the suicide thing however that also ignores the fact that more women than men actually attempt suicide. It's just that men are more likely to be successful due to methods used.

Boys outperformed girls in school for ages but it wasn't considered a big deal. It was just accepted that it was the way things were. Yet when the roles are reversed suddenly it's a massive problem that needs to be addressed. Double standards, I'd say.

Oh I just made a post about this on feminism chat... should have checked active first!!

My work are kicking off their "inclusion and diversity program"

On international mens day. Fucking hell. And a woman running it too facepalm

Large engineering company 2.5k employees at our site alone... failed miserably on the pay equality reporting and brought out a poster explaining how it's cause the menfolk are all managers and the women are admin.. no shit Sherlock?!

The thing is I'm actually not one of those "mens day is 365 days of the year" type people. I kinda get the mental health aspect of it. But some of the bulletpoints where just... men between the ages of 20-30 are much less likely to go to the doctors. Well considering I've been every 3 months at one stage for a bloody contraceptive injection I can kinda see that being true- so what?!

God I despair sometimes.

But IMD seems to be based entirely around how men allegedly have it harder and are now apparently the only real victims here.

You're hugely misrepresenting the point of the day. If you genuinely believe that, you've either never bothered to take any notice, or you're surrounded by idiots who tell you this and you believe it.

"Men are the only victims, there is nothing wrong with anything in women's lives, men have it so much harder than women do"

vs

"Men can be victims too, maybe not in the same way as women, but both genders have problems. We have IWD to talk about problems specific to women, and IMD to talk about problems specific to men. Both are important, because ignoring the problems faced by ANY demographic is harmful, regardless of their relative status"

Saying "You shouldn't have IMD because men have it easier than women" is exactly the same as saying "You shouldn't have IWD because heterosexual women have it much easier than gay people".

I'm sure you could also find a demographic that has it worse than gay people as well. The point isn't that we ignore everyone while focusing on only the problems of the worst off in society. The point is that we address the problems facing ALL of us, together, as a whole.

Fighting toxic masculinity has benefits for both men and women. Allowing men to feel comfortable in themselves - and encouraging them to look after their physical and mental health - can only be a good thing, for various reasons - most of us have men we care about whether partners, dads, sons and friends. Besides, the more we talk about how men can be who they want, the more equal the division of labour will become. DH works in a company that has a host of benefits for men (as well as women, but they have made a real point about promoting them to men) which allows me to feel confident about pursuing a senior job knowing I won’t be left holding the baby.

IMD is a good thing for all of us

Saying "You shouldn't have IMD because men have it easier than women" is exactly the same as saying "You shouldn't have IWD because heterosexual women have it much easier than gay people".

Heterosexual women generally have it easier than homosexual women, yes. And homosexual men will generally have it easier than homosexual women. See where I'm going with this?

And none of your post addresses the fact that IWD isn't focused solely on being a victim whereas IMD is.

It doesn't matter if we say that less men are victims or may be victims in different ways or of different things, it is still focusing exclusively on victim status. Unlike IWD which is focused on celebrating amazing women and how far women have come and continue to come.

Interestingly, international mens day is most searched for on Google on or around International womens day. When it actually is international mens day, the search for it falls massively. That is very telling IMO.