Yesterday, Thursday November 19, marked International Men’s Day; it’s a calendar date that garners little attention in comparison to its female counterpart, International Women’s Day, which takes place on March 8 every year.

This year, though, the occasion seemed more high-profile than in previous years. The hashtag #InternationalMensDay was trending worldwide on Twitter, a sure sign of any given topic’s zeitgeist-worthiness. You might think that this is a step in the right direction. It is, in a way. It certainly serves to highlight issues that affect men in spades such as mental illness, suicide, gender identity issues and prostate cancer.

However, some people in the media, and on social media, took the opportunity to instead zone in on issues of gender equality such as pay gaps, glass ceilings, childcare issues and, ironically, everyday sexism.

Huffington Post contributor Lauren Duca tweeted:

Meanwhile, UK Labour Party MP Jess Phillips wrote an article for The Independent (UK) in which she stated: “We need International Men’s Day about as much as white history month, or able body action day.” (This statement, being wonderful click-bait, of course went on to become the article’s headline and Twitter lead-in.)

To be fair to Jess Philips, her article is not completely derisive of men; she does acknowledge that “men should be able to cry publicly without shame, show weakness and expect kindness back.” However, she goes on to declare: “Men are celebrated, elevated and awarded every day of the week on every day of the year. Being a man is its own reward. You hit the jackpot when you are born a boy child. Yes within your group things are tough for all sorts of reasons. None of them are because you are a man.”

No beating around the bush there. And she’s entitled to her opinion. The problem with this kind of narrative, though, is that it detracts from the very real, important issues that International Men’s Day is striving to highlight; instead it turns the focus to ‘men versus women’, which is never helpful, and only serves to strengthen the misguided stereotype that all feminists are misandrists.

Any self-respecting feminist will recognise that ‘men’s issues’ are just as valid as ‘women’s issues’ and if an annual ‘day’ helps to highlight them as much as International Women’s Day highlights, say, rape, female genital mutilation and domestic abuse, then that can only be a good thing, right?

Speaking of domestic abuse, Amen, the only male domestic abuse charity in Ireland, published its annual report yesterday. In 2014, the service received total of 6,600 interactions with their services - an increase of 37% on the previous year’s report. 39% of cases concerned physical abuse, 61% were in relation to psychological and verbal abuse, and there were two cases of sexual abuse reported.

Manager of Amen’s Support Services, Niamh Farrell, told RTÉ Radio 1’s that only one-in-twenty men report domestic abuse. “That has to change,” she told Barry Lenihan in a Drivetime report. “We have to support men to go for help and say, ‘you will be believed and you will be supported’.”

Amen’s report is unusual. Usually, annual reports are designed to be broken down by statisticians and journalists and broken up into little pieces for the media to report in digestible nuggets. Amen’s report is extremely accessible and user-friendly and I would recommend reading it. Amongst the graphs, the report is peppered with admissions from anonymous service users who recount their experiences of abuse.

They vary from the heartbreaking...

To the shocking...

The idea that International Men’s Day is akin to ‘Steak and Blowjob Day’ is as sexist, demeaning and stereotypical as the idea that International Women’s Day is akin to ‘Makeup and Shoes Day’. If equality is what is being sought, then surely men should be awarded equal opportunities to have their emotional, physical and mental wellbeing treated as seriously as women’s. International Men’s Day is what we make of it. Used responsibly, it can highlight very tangible problems that face men across the world and ultimately help us achieve a more balanced society where ‘gender’ is just an after thought.

Sheena Madden

Amen Helpline: 046 9023 718. To donate visit: http://www.amen.ie/donate.html

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