Stop Male Suicide - International Mens Day

Only thirteen more sleeps to one of the most exciting days of the year for us egocentric men besides Father’s Day.

Don’t worry, I am only kidding about International Men’s Day being egocentric. After all, I was the guy who helped write the song, “It’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way”.

Why are we so excited about International Men’s Day? Well if Dads4Kids isn’t, then who would be? Dads4Kids is still the digital driving force behind International Men’s Day to be held on Saturday 19 November 2016.

The team behind Dads4Kids registered www.internationalmensday.com on 13 June 2008 with the purpose of building a website and producing videos to help promote and resource the celebration of International Men’s Day around the globe.

Although Dads4Kids was the first in the digital domain to send a clarion call for the celebration of International Men’s Day it was not the first in the broader sense. Dr Jerome Teelucksingh, from Trinidad, was the first to call for the celebration of International Men’s Day on 19 November 1999.

At that time, celebration of International Men’s Day occurred on several different days and the team at Dads4Kids played a strategic role, along with others, in bringing all those divergent manhood celebrations on to 19 November every year. This brought global unity when it came to men’s issues.

There are six pillars behind International Men’s Day:

To promote positive male role models; not just movie stars and sportsmen but everyday, working class men who are living decent, honest lives.
To celebrate men’s positive contributions to society, community, family, marriage, child care, and to the environment.
To focus on men’s health and wellbeing; social, emotional, physical and spiritual.
To highlight discrimination against men; in areas of social services, social attitudes and expectations, and law.
To improve gender relations and promote gender equality.
To create a safer, better world; where people can be safe and grow to reach their full potential.

Click this Link if this video does not work

This year it is men’s health and the theme for 2016 is Stop Male Suicide. In every country except China, where it is approximately equal, the suicide rate is worse for men than women and averaged out on a country by country basis the rate of suicide for men is up to three times that of women. In Russia, it is 6 men for every 1 women. Men’s health is worse than women’s in every part of the world. Recent World Health Organization (WHO) data shows that, globally, male life expectancy at birth in 2015 was 69 years; for females, it was 74 years. Children suffer when they lose a father or a grandfather prematurely. Let’s work together to turn the tide of male ill-health & suicide.

The deplorable state of men’s health internationally is obviously a contributing factor to the epidemic of Male Suicide across the world. This year Glen Poole the IMD coordinator for the UK has written a book called “Stop Male Suicide.” His solution can be summed up in the words LEARN +LOVE+LISTEN. Let’s use this motto for 2016 International Men’s Day and all help Stop Male Suicide. If we each applied the saying ‘LEARN +LOVE+LISTEN’ everyday the world would become a better place.

Glen Poole the author of Stop Male Suicide has written a splendid article in the UK Telegraph called: Philip Davies’s men’s rights victory turned me into a blubbering wreck

“Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. Philip Davies MP, the parliamentary spokesman for the Campaign Against Political Correctness, made my cry.

It happened while watching a recording of Parliament’s Backbench Business Committee, which is enough to reduce anyone to tears of boredom, but it was the words of Philip Davies, known affectionately by colleagues as a sexist troglodyte, that made me weep.

It is the second year running that Davies, who thinks “ feminist zealots want women to have their cake and eat it ”, has argued that because Parliament has a women’s debate on International Women’s Day, there should also be a debate on men’s issues, for International Men’s Day.

Last year, Davies was eventually granted a debate in Westminster Hall, parliament’s overflow room. Happily, I’ve just heard that this year he’s gone one better. His motion has been successful: there will be an historic debate on men’s rights in the main chamber.

It’s all a far cry from the circus of 2015, when committee member Jess Phillips MP stole the limelight by sniggering and chortling at the proposal from Davies. Her actions prompted me to ask “what’s so funny about debating men’s issues? ” and others to question “who’s really being silenced in the gender debate?”

This year is different. The reason Philip Davies made me cry with this week’s demand for a Parliamentary debate on men’s issues, is that I’m the UK co-ordinator for International Men’s Day (IMD), which falls on 19^th November every year. It’s an event I’ve been promoting, with the help of other volunteers across the political spectrum, for seven years now.

IMD is not a right-wing, anti-feminist backlash against political correctness gone mad, it’s an inclusive platform that invites everyone who is concerned about the many different issues that men and boys face, to use the day to focus on possible solutions.

In 2011, we held the First National Conference for Men and Boys in Brighton and persuaded nearly 100 organisations to sign a joint letter to the Government, calling for more focus on the specific needs of men and boys and how to address them.

With one voice we said: “We recognise that there are many male voices in parliament, but there are very few male or female voices highlighting the specific needs of men and boys in the UK.” These words were echoed by Davies in last year’s spat with Phillips, when he argued there’s a very big difference between “men raising issues and the raising of men’s issues”.

So I was delighted when Davies won the day in 2015 and we saw the first-ever parliamentary debate on men’s issues for International Men’s Day. It was an historic moment for the men and boys sector in the UK. Yet there was a tinge of sadness that this landmark moment was overshadowed by the pantomime slapstick of left versus right, men versus women, feminists versus anti-feminists, Jess versus Phil.

But if there are very few voices talking about men’s issues in parliament and one MP out of 650 steps forward and takes the stage, it would be churlish to say “but it’s the wrong MP”. I would never have thought Philip Davies could make me cry, but he did.

Read full article here:

Lovework

Two things.

Firstly, make sure you celebrate International Men’s Day in some way on Saturday 19 November. Your children will need to know what a man is one day, if not now. You could even celebrate the day with them and yes let’s do something to Stop Male Suicide. Together we can make a difference. Remember our message Listen Love Learn!

Secondly, help get the message out about the www.internationalmensday.com Facebook site by ‘liking’ us on Facebook and commenting. Tell your friends to do the same. Together we can begin the process of stopping male suicide.