International Men’s Day.

International Men’s Day has been marked on 19 November since the late 1990s and is now recognised in something like eighty countries. In the UK it has become the day organisations notice men’s health, which is useful, though it does mean a lot of the attention arrives and leaves inside twenty four hours.

The themes it returns to are consistent: male suicide, men’s physical health, men as fathers and carers, positive male role models, and the gap between how men are doing and how they say they are doing.

Why it matters here

Suicide remains the biggest killer of men under fifty in the UK, and around three quarters of all suicides are men. Those are the numbers that get quoted every November, and they are worth quoting, but they describe an outcome rather than a cause.

What sits underneath is more ordinary. Men lose contact with their friends slowly, over years, without noticing it happen. Work absorbs the time, relationships absorb the rest, and one day a man realises he has nobody to ring who is not his partner. That is not a mental health crisis in itself. It is just the ground that crises grow in.

How to actually mark it

If you run an organisation, a post is fine but a standing commitment is better. Put something in the calendar that survives to December. The men in your building do not need one good conversation in November, they need somewhere to go in February.

If you are a bloke reading this, the most useful thing you can do on 19 November costs nothing. Ring someone you have not spoken to in a while. Not to check on them, which puts them on the spot, just to talk. Or bring someone with you to something.

What we do on the day

We run our normal week, which is the point. Mandem Meetup exists the other three hundred and sixty four days as well, and the men who come in November are largely the men who were already coming in October.

If you want to do something with us for International Men’s Day, whether that is your workplace, your team or just you, get in touch and we will find something sensible.