What’s going on with Kiwi blokes? I don’t mean the annual outburst of facial hair for Movember. I mean these hairy statistics:
- NZ men are 3 times more likely than women to commit suicide.
- NZ has the second highest youth suicide death rate among men in the world.
- Twice as many NZ men experience depression than women.
- NZ men die 4 years earlier than women.
- Young men are more disengaged than females when it comes to education. They leave school earlier, with lower attainment levels.
- About 25% more females graduate with tertiary degrees than males.
- 80% of people in NZ prisons are men.
- 40% of NZ men are obese, compared to 27% of women.
- 27% of NZ men have a “hazardous drinking pattern”, compared to 11% of women.
- NZ men have higher rates of cancer than NZ women (about 38% higher), and they’re more likely to die from cancer. Heart disease is also significantly higher for men than women.
This is not a pretty picture. Why are we letting so many men suffer, and why are few people even talking about the state of life for men in NZ today?
I’m wary of generalising about half of NZ’s population, as we’re very diverse, but here are some of my reflections on being a Kiwi bloke:
Expressing our Inner Bloke
Learning to breathe again
for the first time, in so long now
Learning to see again
through my pride
Learning to speak again
from my heart
Learning to be a friend
for the first time, for the first time
In so long… – Fat Freddy’s Drop, Dark Days
What’s clear to me is that many NZ men are suffering and we don’t know how to resolve this. We often try to numb our pain through binge drinking and eating, or we bottle up our pain and discover that it can resurface in the form of heart disease or cancer. Some of us are also venting our frustration violently.
One of the reasons we’re suffering is that we don’t know how to deal with our emotions. It’s a common myth that men are less emotional than women. No way. It’s just that most men I know are more likely to contain / control their emotions, instead of expressing them in a healthy way. We’ve often learned to be like this. It’s part of our culture. For example I remember being called a “girl” when I cried as a kid (and lets be clear: I like girls, but I don’t want to be one). I even got hit by my teacher on my first day of school when I couldn’t stop crying. So I learned not to cry. The tears still don’t flow very easily. At least nowadays I don’t hold them back if they do.
Most NZ men are also a bit stunted compared to women when it comes to expressing ourselves verbally. Talking about all that hearty stuff often doesn’t come easy for us (especially when we’re teenagers and we prefer to speak in monosyllabic grunts). I know this all too well. I was pretty dismal at expressing myself too, and I’m still learning. I’m very grateful to many of my female friends—an ex-girlfriend in particular—who taught me how to speak more clearly from my heart. Talking about emotions is just a learned skill. All of us can do it.
I’ve also found that women sometimes get frustrated at men when we have difficulties finding those elusive words to communicate our feelings. We blokes often need to retreat into ourselves, or into the wilderness (like the “man alone”), to reconnect with our hearts and understand what we are experiencing. As long as we don’t use the “she’ll be right” approach as an excuse for not confronting what we’re facing, we’ll find a way to express ourselves eventually. Being compassionate is important while we’re learning.
Words are only one way that we can express ourselves. For example, two of my mates teach art and yoga to men in prisons. I’m inspired by the ways that they’re helping men to open up and express themselves through creative and physical practices.
Getting to the heart of men
Cast no stone
Be taught to comprehend
The wisdom to let go…
Peaceful man, you’re not forgotten
- Little Bushman, Peaceful Man
While I’m on the subject of gender stereotypes, we really need to re-examine some cultural myths. For example, many women (and some men) I know talk about masculinity in a negative way. It’s often associated with brute force, aggression, violence, or an overly-rational mind. I seldom hear people talking about masculinity in very positive ways. All of us have masculine and feminine aspects, so if we keep criticising one or the other then we are just failing to acknowledge and embrace part of ourselves.
The more I look into my own heart, and the hearts of every man I know, what I see is a deep peacefulness. It’s inherent to everyone. While everyone has a view on the differences between masculinity and femininity, I see masculinity as more of a still energy. Femininity is a more of a creative energy. So when I look at men (and women) I often see this stillness, even if it’s deep below the surface. For some reason I often find it easier to see this stillness in men though. Just think about the stereotype of the “strong silent” type. Now ponder this: stillness is a state of peacefulness.
I therefore wonder if our society has been taking an unfair view of many men. We often draw attention to the shadows of peacefulness, while neglecting what is at our core. We see the form that masculinity takes when it’s prevented from being well-expressed. For example, many men become frustrated or aggressive when they can’t express themselves well, or when they’re feeling defensive (i.e. when they’re trying to be self-protective because they feel insecure). These expressions are merely symptoms that we’re feeling far from who we really are.
Even when I look at “tough guys” in society, what I’ve found is that the “toughest” men are usually the biggest puppies on the inside. The toughening-up is simply a shield for the sensitive self. We develop a thick skin to protect/numb ourselves from the world. Letting go of our toughness is really a great way to show our true strength in being who we are.
I’ve also heard many people say that we need less masculine energy in society, as if this would solve many problems. My view is that we need more feminine energy and more masculine energy to be healthily expressed. What makes this world most alive is balancing and integrating these energies together.
Revving up the revival
So what could spark a revival of the kiwi bloke? We’ve got to recognise these issues to start with. I’m curious: why do we have a Ministry of Women’s Affairs, which plays an important role in advancing the well-being of women, and not an agency to support the well-being of men? Why don’t we have a Ministry for Gender Equity? NZ has often led the world on recognising rights for women. Can we do the same for men? Yes it’s unjust that men earn more money, on average, than women. But when did money become an accurate representation of well-being? Don’t we need to look at the full picture of what’s going on for both sexes?
Rather than just calling for a new institution though, what we really need is a cultural shift. Us men need to keep learning to express ourselves better, and both men and women need to strongly support one another. Maybe we also need to recognise that this revival is already underway. I see it in Movember. I hear it in NZ music. I read it in NZ books. I notice it in the ways that my mates now relate (although sometimes we still need to establish that a hug is preferable to a handshake). I also see it in myself. So to all my NZ brothers and sisters: let’s embrace more of the peaceful and creative energies that are already within us and boost the revival of the great kiwi bloke.
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This is fantastic bro, It makes me think of all the things I admire and value about the men in my life. The list is long…! you’ve inspired me to write about it.
It also makes me think about my experiences with the men in my life and how, over time i’ve learnt to understand that we differ so much in our ‘ways’ (of communicating, etc) yet, at the core of it all we are ‘from the same dust’. Mixes of both the masculine and feminine. I know I value these qualities in myself. Recognizing them as valuable was a big shift for me. The tears and the staunchness…I do love my masculine tears and my feminine fire, haha!
This morning I was reading Shantaram by Gregory Roberts – a story (loosely based on his own experiences) about being an armed robber and heroin addict who escaped from an Australia prison and joined the underworld in Bombay. It’s a personal account of coming to terms with himself. He reaches a turning point when he visits a small and friendly village. I’ve added a quote from this encounter because it captures some of the same insights from my reflections above. Sometimes we read/hear things that help to reconfirm something for us at just the right time:
“I was thinking about another kind of river, one that runs through every one of us, no matter where we come from, all over the world. It’s the river of the heart, and the heart’s desire. It’s the pure essential truth of what each one of us is, and can achieve. All my life I’d been a fighter. I was always ready, too ready, to fight for what I loved, and against what I deplored. In the end I became the expression of that fight, and my real nature was concealed behind a mask of menace and hostility….
It didn’t work in the village…They took me as a peaceful man… I was given a chance to reinvent myself, to follow that river within, and become the man I’d always wanted to be… They knew the place in me where the river stopped, and they marked it with a new name. Shantaram [man of peace]. I don’t know if they found that name in the heart of the man they believed me to be, or if they planted it there, like a wishing tree, to bloom and grow. Whatever the case, whether they discovered that peace or created it, the truth is that the man I am was born in those moments…Shantaram. The better man that, slowly, and much too late, I began to be.” ~Gregory Roberts
Great stuff Nick. This is a wonderful, important post and I’m all for the revival (including the continued transformation of some of my own stereotypes about men and masculinity).
One aspect of this whole issue is the experience so many women have had of violence at the hands of men. Of course, part of the root cause of that violence is precisely this failure in our society to fully value and embrace the beauty of both masculine and feminine energy and qualities in each of us. But it has left a huge scar, in fact in many cases their isn’t even a scar – just a gaping wound.
So part of this revival may need to be a way to begin to heal the wound of so much gender-based violence in our country.
There is something circular in what I’m trying to say. I believe that the kind of revival you are talking about here has the potential to reduce – and eventually eliminate – gender-based violence. But to get to the place where it is possible, we have to acknowledge and heal the wound currently being caused by that violence.
Does that make any sense at all?
Thanks for your insightful comments Marianne – I agree, there are gaping wounds in society from the violence of men towards women (and towards other men). There’s been a lot more recognition in recent decades that violence is never justified, but the violence still continues on a huge scale. But how can we do this with compassion, to really get to the heart of what’s going on and prevent more harm being done?
One of my best friends was raped last year, and it’s been heart-wrenching to see the impact it’s had on her life. I’ve also struggled to be compassionate towards the man that raped her. One of the things that most amazed me about her response was that her main motive for taking up a police case against the man who raped her wasn’t to punish him. She wanted him to acknowledge the violence and harm of his actions (which he still hasn’t done) and to make sure everyone in his community talked about what had happened. She wanted more people to realise that this sort of violence is happening all the time, and to to prevent him and others from abusing their power like this again. We need more people showing the courage to bring these issues out in the open, and more men finding the strength to unravel all their own layers of accumulated fear and anger to express themselves peacefully.
Beautifully said, you did wonderfully to unravel my rather circular musing.
Bring compassionate courage and clarity to this, and all other aspects of this conversation, is absolutely essential.
I have boundless respect for your friend. I agree whole-heartedly with her that punishment is less important than acknowledgement and taking responsibility for the harm we have done. But that is much easier said than put into practice. So I deeply admire her courage. Restorative rather than punitive justice models are being explored in our country to see if we can bring more of this into our justice system. I am hopeful.
And although physical violence is overwhelming perpetrated by men against women, emotional violence is also widespread and boys and men are also on the receiving end. A small boy told not to cry on his first do of school is one heart-breaking example.
Getting to the heart of the cause of this is going to take lots of compassion, and also the courage to talk about what has happened and what is still happening.
Perhaps most of all, the courage for each of us to take responsibility for the ways – small or large, subtle or obvious – in which we ourselves continue to perpetrate violence or the kind of polarisation and dehumanization which enables violence to flourish. And that is a call to action to myself first and foremost.
Beautiful, as always. I also love the comments – bekabird and marianne you are wonderful minds. Thanks for a wonderful moment. You’re expressing my thoughts eloquently and taking me on the next part of the journey so I can better learn the next part
Mucho gracias, abrasos.
Well said, Nick. I think there’s also a lot of pressure on men to live up to a certain way of being a man in NZ. Even simply going for the Sport section of the paper first and having something to say about it. To be honest, nothing bores me more than rugby talk, but you can feel pretty out of it in the staff room on a Monday morning if you have nothing to say about this or that player.
It can be the same when going to a barbecue or something with people you mostly don’t know – the men gravitate to one another and the conversational subject matter seems almost predetermined (and predictably dull). It can be a relief to discover someone else who would rather talk about more substantial things!
There’s also body image pressure too, pressure to be heavy – muscle or fat, doesn’t matter, as long as you’ve got your fair share of the universe’s atoms that you can swagger about. It’s no wonder a lot of men feel helpless when they find themselves unable to live up to perceived expectations. We’re not all carnivorous uberblokes!
It always makes me laugh when there is a TV interview with a couple, and the woman often speaks on behalf of them both, with the man sitting back quietly nodding. Good on her for doing so – but perhaps the man’s apparent stillness is a sign of a lack of courage, to stand up and say what needs to be said, in a way that rejects the violent ways this often happens.