The University of York has withdrawn plans to celebrate International Men’s Day (19th November) and highlight issues like male suicide, after academics and students complained, saying “gender equality is for everyone” was “misogynistic”.

In confirming that he had cancelled plans for an International Men’s Day celebration, the university’s Registrar and Secretary, Dr David Duncan said: “the intention was to draw attention to some of the issues men tell us they encounter and to follow this up by highlighting in particular the availability of mental health and welfare support which we know men are sometimes reluctant to access”.

The University of York has cancelled plans to mark International Men's Day on Thursday Credit: Alamy

And so once again we see the double bind that suicidal men and those who advocate their need for support are constantly placed in. On the one hand we are told that the answer to the public health emergency of male suicide is to get men talking about their issues. On the other hand we are told that we can’t talk about men’s issues because women's issues are more important.

The tragedy of this situation is that by campaigning against men’s issues, women’s rights advocates at the University of York have made it harder for suicidal men to reach out and get the help they need.

This isn’t idle conjecture. One of the key pieces of research on men’s help-seeking behaviour, by Addis and Mahalik, concluded that men find it easier to seek help when the problem they are dealing with is socially accepted.

The message that the University of York has sent out to men and boys, by capitulating to the anti-male sentiments of lecturers, student reps and alumni, is that it is socially unacceptable to talk about men’s issues.

And when you send out a message that is socially unacceptable to talk about men’s issues, you re-enforce unhelpful cultural messages about masculinity like “boys don’t cry” and “real men” don’t talk about their issues.

Suicide is now the single biggest cause of death in men aged 20–49 in England and Wales Credit: Alamy

In 2015 we are still conditioned to believe that care and compassion is for women and girls; those who campaign against International Men’s Day re-enforce these outdated and sexist attitudes by demonstrating a complete lack of compassion for the issues faced by men and boys.

In successfully opposing the Equality and Diversity committee’s plans to mark International Men’s Day, lecturers in women’s studies, human rights, politics, psychology, philosophy and a range of other subjects have shown little concern for either gender diversity or intellectual diversity at the University of York.

The Equality Act 2010, which applies equally to men and women, places a duty on the public sector to take action to address areas where one group (e.g. men and boys) has fared less well than others.

This isn’t about making a binary decision on whether to tackle the gender inequality experienced by men OR women, it is about having a legal obligation to tackle the inequalities experienced by both women AND men.

"There are too many men dying on a daily basis in the UK to play gender politics with their lives" Glen Poole

For several years now, the Chief Executive of Ucas, Mary Curnock Cook, has been warning the university sector that young men are becoming a disadvantaged minority. In August she told the Telegraph she was “astounded that there is not more political and societal focus on this."

Similarly, in the field of mental health, Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of the charity Mind, has said “it is a major health inequality that a mental health strategy exists for women but not for men”.

Like the university’s registrar, both Farmer and Curnock Cook are arguing that “gender equality is for everyone” but according to those opposing International Men’s Day, to say such a thing “echoes misogynistic rhetoric”.

These are clearly not the ravings of rabid misogynists who feel threatened by women’s progress and believe in returning men to their rightful position at the top of the patriarchal tree. These are caring, compassionate and fiercely intelligent professionals who acknowledge the importance of addressing the needs of men and boys in addition to, not in opposition to, the needs of women and girls.

This inability to listen to experts like Farmer and Curnock Cook when they talk about men’s issues is symptomatic of a close-minded approach to men and boys in higher education that lacks the courage to engage with diverse ways of thinking about gender issues.

In their open letter to the University of York, in which academics made a case for oppressing the discussion of men’s issues on campus, their core argument is that there is a right way and a wrong to talk about gender issues—and that their way is right and everyone else is wrong.

This is a fundamentalist approach to thinking that has no place in a publicly-funded higher education system that prides itself on promoting the “free expression of opinion on matters of public interest”.

The fact that 13 men will die by suicide in the UK today reminds us that too many men find it easier to kill themselves than get help with their issues.

The fact that 200 people at the University of York responded so negatively to a proposal to talk about men’s issues on International Men’s Day reminds us that too many women’s rights campaigners find it easier to suppress debates they can’t control, than support people who want to talk about men’s issues from a diverse range of perspectives.

There are too many men dying on a daily basis in the UK to play gender politics with their lives. Surely we can find the courage, the compassion and the creativity to do better than this?

If we want to help men talk about their issues, we need to create a society that helps people to talk about men’s issues free from the censorship of narrow-minded academics and student representatives. It may not be easy, but that’s why we have initiatives like International Men’s Day to help us develop our ability to both talk about and listen to the issues that men and boys face in new and creative ways.

My invitation to the tens of thousands of staff, students and alumni at the University of York is to get behind the drive to help men talk about male suicide and other men’s issues by signing up to CALM UK’s #BiggerIssues social media campaign at www.biggerissues.co.uk, which launches on International Men’s Day.

Glen Poole is the news editor of online magazine insideMAN and author of the book Equality For Men