Hi Pax,

You mention three sub-portals - Men's Health, Men and Violence and Male Circumcision. Where are they, I cannot find them. Sorry I sometimes have a hard time with computers.

FLyer...

Hi there -

WiserEarth now has a Men's portal! There are three sub-portals - Men's Health, Men and Violence and Male Circumcision.

Hey Michael,

Your points are all good ones. I can only imagine the kind of process it has taken to get WiserEarth to the point it is now and the complications of creating a meaningful and useful say to classify the huge number of organizations throughout the world.

From my perspective as someone who has been active working with these issues for more than 40 years, I think the Wiser environment is an imporant one for bringing together the various individuals and organizations who are making a difference in the world.

Since the way things are classified has an impact on how they are perceived, I think this discussion is important.

For instance, we have had a view in health-care that, as you say, thought "the entire body of medical history seemed to ignore women, and therefore, developed for men," yet new research shows us that we have neglected important aspects of men's health as well as women's health.

In fact, it has been a number of leading women's health activisits who have been at the forefront of a new approach focused on gender-specific health care that would take into account women's and men's unique health-care needs.

Marianne J. Legato, M.D. was one of the first research physicians to recognize that women have very different medical needs than men. Her work on heart disease in women changed the way the health-care system has offered care.

More recently she founded the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University. She acknowledges that this new field, though initially focused on the health-care needs of women, is for men as well.

She says, "until now, we've acted as though men and women were essentially identical except for the differences in their reproductive function. In fact, information we've been gathering over the past ten years tells us that this is anything but true, and that everywhere we look, the two sexes are startingly and unexpectedly different not only in their normal function but in the ways they experience illness."

Our old system of medicine which assumed "people are people" is inadequate. For instance we now know that men produce 52 percent more of the hormone needed to prevent depression (serotonin) than women. It may be one of the reasons that studies show that women are twice as likely as men to experience depression.

When their serotinin levels drop, women tend to withdraw and become anxious and reclusive. Men, on the other hand, respond to low serotonin levels with aggressive behavior and often increase their alcohol intake. This may be one of the reasons that male depression is not as readily recognized and why the male suicide rate is 4 to 15 times higher than it is for women.

However, WiserWorld is organized, if we focus on women, I believe we should focus on men. A gender-specific approach to our understanding of human rights, environmental health, and indigenous communities, will add an important perspective to our understanding and the actions that are required to save the fragile human web we are all apart of.

Friends,

I’m just becoming familiar with the Wiser environment. One way to see where a focus on males may fit would be to look at the women’s area. Another would be to get feedback from men’s leaders who work in these areas and see what categories make sense to them.

Here’s an initial look at some possible areas of focus that I would suggest we consider.

Men and Violence:

The World Health Organization defines violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation."

WHO devides violence into three broad categories: Self directed violence, interpersonal violence, and collective violence.

There are a number of organizations that focus on males, both as perpetrators and victims of violence.

Men's Health

When I began working in the area of men’s health in 1965 there was little focus on the specific health needs of men (or women). Dr. Herb Goldberg focused attention on men’s health in his 1976 best seller, The Hazards of Being Male. “The male has paid a heavy price for his masculine ‘privilege’ and power. He is out of touch with his emotions and his body. He is playing by the rules of the male game plan, and with lemming-like purpose he is destroying himself—emotionally, psychologically, and physically.”

More recently Dr. Will Courtenay (Clinical faculty member, school of Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco) noted “Men live much shorter lives than women and have higher risks for all 15 leading causes of death. Despite these statistics, most American men think their health is ‘excellent’ and they’re dying to prove it.”

Minority and indigenous men’s health is even worse than the general population. I think we could have the following sub-categories under men’s health.

General Men's Health
Minority Men's Health
Indigenous Men's Health

(I spent 4 months last year in Australia and New Zealand with Indigenous men talking about health issues)

Men in Prisons

Our prison population continues to increase in the U.S. and throughout the world a disproportionate number of men (particularly minority and indigenous men end up in prison).

Male Circumcision

I spoke to a woman active in the fight to end female genital mutilation. She said, it had never occurred to her that male circumcision was comparable in any way until, "I heard the screams of the baby boy. It was the same scream I've been hearing with girls." She now works to end genital mutilation among boys and girls.

Demographics

There are important demographic realities about males in the world.
For instance, in Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population, researchers Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer note, “As the two largest societies in the world, China and India comprise more than 38 percent of the world’s population. Because of the socially sanctioned practice of offspring sex selection, both societies have surpluses of young adult males (ages 15-34)…The masculinization of Asia’s sex ratios is one of the overlooked ‘megatrends’ of our time, a phenomenon that may very likely influence the course of national and perhaps even international politics in the twenty-first century.”

Another major demographic trend is the huge decrease in life-span among men in the former Soviet Union.

In Japan a new phenomenon of social withdrawal, called hikikomori, among males is increasingly prevalent. Young males, often taunted at school, return home and shut themselves in, refusing to leave. In the 1970s, the Japanese identified another phenomenon among males, karoshi, or death by overwork.

Gender Equality

Men often fear women as well as feeling dependent on them. This dynamic often leads to subjugation and violence. In his book, Misogyny: The Male Malady, anthropologist David Gilmore studied cultures throughout the world and concluded that in all places and in all times, there has been a tendency for men to fear and hate women. He discovered that “men love and hate women simultaneously and in equal measure, that most men need women desperately, and that most men reject this driving need as both unworthy and dangerous.”

Dr. Devra Davis, senior advisor to the World Health Organization, has found that there is a decline in male reproductive viability that seems to be caused by our destruction of the environment and use of pesticides.

Family Planning

Family planning has often fallen on women’s shoulders, but a number of programs focus on the guys.

Male Rites of Passage

Anthropologist David Gilmore has done excellent research on the importance of male rites of passage. The lack of adequate rites of passage are one of the causes of male violence in the world. A number of organizations are focused on this issue.

Peace, War, and Security

Gender is an important variable in understanding peace, war, and security.

According to a study reported by Edie Weiner, one of the leading researchers on future trends, “The most destabilizing geopolitical force in the world today is the vast number of young men without jobs and other opportunities.”

One of the leading predictors of violence in countries throughout the world is the percentage of young men between the ages of 29 and 29 who are not married.

Countries with large percentages of young, single men include: Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Turkey, Egypt, India, Afghanistan, China, and Israel.

Masculinity, Meat-Eating, and Global Warming

Meat-eating has long been associated with masculinity, wealth, and power. We now know that this meat-centered diet is not only unhealthy for individuals, but puts added stresses on the environment.

This could be a space for how males as a "group" can be allies or leaders on causes that defy "conventional" organizing (see the org Men Stopping Rape). An area of focus would strengthen the focus and coalitions of groups working towards this issue more so than a hub. But I think we need to work towards a more in-depth analysis on a men's aof first. If Im goin to support an aof for males, I need to know exactly what I am supporting.

Jed: do you have a proposal for a title for such an aof?

I agree, David. Women-related areas of focus on WiserEarth were initially created to address the issues women face as a historically and continuously under-represented part of our global population. Jed's also got a great point in that there are excellent male-based organizations worldwide that address gender justice issues. Since the WiserEarth taxonomy focuses on social justice for underserved groups (even down to disease- Malaria, TB, and AIDs are all suffered disproportionately by underdeveloped countries, for example.), I would suggest creating a community hub for male-based gender justice organizations instead of an actual area of focus.

If Men's groups were added as an AoF, I would also want to be careful that we don't create a polarized representation of gender on WiserEarth. Transgender rights, for example, and the LGBT community as a whole are still struggling for awareness. 'Rights and Equality of LGBT' are currently under Human Rights. Where would you see a male-based gender justice portal fitting into the taxonomy?

I recently heard about Wiser Earth from Paul Hawkin's book and from meeting people at the recent BALLE conference.

When I explored the Wiser topic areas I noticed that there was a topic area focused on Women, but not one on Men.

For the last 42 years I have focused my work on gender-justice issues. I've written 8 books including one called "The Warrior's Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing Planet." In it I talk about the relationship between traditional gender roles and the destruction of the planetary eco-system and the emergence of a new gender roles that are more in balance with nature as well as the human spirit of gender equality.

I work with men's issues that include men in prisons, male suicide (My recent book The Irritable Male Syndrome: Managing the 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression explores violence in all its forms, internal as well as external), minority men's issues, and other gender issues related to men.

I feel the Wiser community has a unique opportunity to bring about healing and justice for men and women in the world and to use that healing focus for the healing of the planet.

I'm interested in your feedback.

Jed Diamond