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this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
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I scrolled past this at first, then went back and man, it brought a smile to my face. I'm going through a stressful time in school (since the education system is ass, especially for neurodivergent students) and this gave me a bunch of hope.
And I gotta say, lots of our feeds are packed with depressing news stories and Lemmy infighting, but where's the feel good content? I've only seen a few of them so far.
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I think the ever growing machismo bullshit in America has subconsciously made me a different (better) person out of spite. I grew my hair super long again, and embrace liking kawaii and other cute and chill cultures, despite being a straight cis white male that wears mostly black and listens to metal.
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πππ
??? Mental Health Awareness Month is May. It's super easy to remember because of the alliteration.
did you misread the hashtag
Well, no. I make sure to always emphasize men's mental health, and I especially love talking about it in the context of Klingons. But... I can't make every month mental health awareness month.
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Yay, thank you!
Appreciating some male positivity
Thank you. π
Thanks for sharing this. Patriarchy damages men, they're expected to hide their feelings, "man up" and crush emotions inside. It really hurts men and it's totally wrong
FYI "patriarchy" is a gendered term which comes from the Latin, originally meaning "church government by patriarchs" (1560s) and later evolved to mean "society or government by elder males" (1630s). Historically, it referred to autocratic rule by men. More recently it has been expanded in feminist theory which broadly ascribes a set of toxic behaviours to men as a group. The problem with this word is that men don't have a patent on toxic behaviour. It's often not men telling other men not to cry and to man up, for example. It's often the women in our lives, and especially our romantic partners. Raising "patriarchy" in this discussion is tantamount to blaming men for the issues they experience, and this is not helpful to anyone. No more than suggesting rape victims are also victims of the "matriarchy." If you understand how offensive that might seem to you, you might understand how offensive your comment can be to men.
FYI,
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men.
[...] Historically, patriarchy has manifested itself in the social, legal, political, religious, and economic organization of a range of different cultures. Most contemporary societies are, in practice, patriarchal, unless the criteria of complete exclusion of women in authority is applied.
Partiarchy is not a description of masculinity, toxic or otherwise. Patriarchy is a description of a social heirarchy.
Patriarchy is in large part to blame for toxic masculinity because historically and currently, men with power enforced social rule by men, and therefore enforced social elevation by their own subjective idea of what masculinity should be.
Patriarchy is not much different from (and intrinsically linked to) the idea of a King's divine right to rule - if you were in power, you deserved to be in power, and the qualities of the people in power were therefore the qualities of the people who deserved to be in power. Thus, their ideas of masculinity became long-lasting cultural norms.
Pointing out that the history of patriarchy enforced toxic masculinity is not accusing men themselves of enforcing it on an individual level, or dismissing rhe role that women played in enforcing these gender divisions.
The same can be said for pointing out that the history of Feudalism enforced horrrible class stratification that still impacts Western culture today. Modern day Knights like the late Sir Terry Pratchett and Sir Elton John would agree with that, because individuals can be distanced from and even directly challenge a system that they benefit from, much like men have a moral right and responsibility to challenge the role that the Patriarchy has played in enforcing these outdated gender divisions.
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managed to make a comment about the damaging aspects of male dominated society into hating women, congrats.
A male friend of mine who confides in me was complaining to me about how there are these 'feminists' talking about 'toxic masculinity.' Apparently he viewed some video where a guy was intentionally conflating masculinity with toxic masculinity. I didn't know that at the time, I was just shocked, because he's the biggest victim of toxic masculinity I know. When I said that, he asked me to explain, and I pointed to the fact that his father burned his sketchbooks (this was the 70s) because art is "for girls." Which is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
When I explained that toxic masculinity is that, the emphasis to conform to some harmful version of masculinity, he turned on a dime so fast in rage at the asshole who conflated the two.
The thing that hurts my feelings most is when men are taught to forward toxic masculinity that harms them. When they're forged into links in a chain that they would never wield if they knew better.
It sure is sad.
I got to say what grinds my gears more than it should is that some people in their fight against mysogyny and patriarchy are really mindless in their wording. Just today when i browsed reddit (my bad i know) i came across a thread that rightfully was upset about bigoted gay men and someone wrote "being gay does not stop some men from being... you know men. Toxic and Misogynistic." And i just felt getting upset and was wondering if it is really so hard to write "Some men, even when gay, still are toxic and mysogonistic", which is probably what they wanted to say anyways. I think that this can push away some men that already feel dismissed or are struggling.
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Yep exactly!
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Men's health month being identical with gay pride month seems rather unfortunate.
There's only 12 months in the year. If every issue is going to have a month, there's going to be some overlap.
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It only seems unfortunate because of toxic issues and misunderstandings.
In reality, the goals of the two groups are completely aligned. Mental health, acceptance, being treated fairly, and just wanting to be happy and free. A lot of pride is essentially modern feminism, which also encompasses men's rights in good, healthy ways that are ACTUALLY good for men.
As a flaming neurodivergent queer, I can tell you, that pride and men's health have so many goals in common, that the Venn Diagram is basically just a single circle.
We can absolutely share.
The toxic issues and misunderstandings are precisely the reason why these months exist in the first place.
While it's true that they're generally aligned, that doesn't mean that they actually gain from sharing the same month. Even queer people haven't all accepted that this is a fight that needs to be fought together, and many men are afraid to get close to queer movement(s) not even necessarily because they themselves think it's bad, but because they're afraid of what, let's say, less enlightened people will think and do.
For the record, I'm queer, too.
I prefer to think of men's health as pride's child event: pride has many movements under it, and as long as they don't go against the spirit and movement of pride, they're welcome to join.
People will be afraid of anything, for all sorts of real or imagined reasons. I welcome them in peace with arms wide open, for all those that are willing to try in good faith are welcome to seek peace and a better tomorrow. We are all human, just trying to be happy. If we can reach ascension and self awareness, together, we can go, together, and behead each and every billionaire and bathe in their life force and consume their cursed flesh, making the world a better place and a better tomorrow for us all π«
;)
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It's due to Father's Day and started as the week leading up to Father's Day.
It's annoying to have to wonder whether whoever started men's health month did it just to be all "but what about this other issue?" and intentionally move attention away from pride. Issues of men's rights and health are extremely important to me, and I hate how often they're brought up in bad faith by misogynists and other hateful people.
Totally bad faith. Mental health awareness month is May. It's non-gendered but it's been May since 1949.
Source: NAMI. The National Alliance on Mental Health. I support them financially.
If you want to make men's health a whole month, it's probably not a good idea to make it completely overlap with another prominent health-themed month. Not that June is any better.
It's inevitable though, there are so many issues and only twelve months.
If ya'll aren't emphasizing men's mental health, which is friggin epidemic, during the mental health month, it's being done wrong.
Let's be real, I don't remember seeing any 'mental health month' posts in May.
I find it ironic that mental health awareness month happens during one of the most hectic months of the year for many people.
I got to be honest, that really bums me out.
I'm a person with C-PTSD who volunteers with local veterans. I really hammered home mental health awareness month. I mean, I talk about it all the time, but NAMI does some cool stuff during May. I even recall seeing some busses that had NAMI wraps on them talking about it in May!
Eta: I said elsewhere, and I'm saying it again (hope it sinks in), next May I'll try and generate content and memes and stuff. Hearing that some of you didn't see or hear anything during May has really had a massive dampening effect on my day. Ya'll deserve outreach, same as everyone in my meatspace.
Is that true that it was done in bad faith?
Because it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. A pretty big portion of people that celebrate pride.... Are men. (And as a slight tangent, let me just say that pride is amazing for your all-over health)
Of course it was. There's a subsection of people who want to divide the folks who believe in things like men's mental health, and also pride. You can do both. You should do both. Trying to move mental health month to overlap with pride is agitprop. Trying to make this a pride versus men issue, or a mental health versus men's mental health issue, is coordinated nonsense. Don't let them do that to you.
Advocate for mental health, and men's mental health, every day. Celebrate mental health month, and include your male friends, like I do. But don't let someone try and define men's mental health specifically to overlap with something else, something that right-wing, manosphere assholes will tell you is bad.
Edited to add: I think part of the problem is that folks don't seem to keep these things in their calendars or in their minds, and just react to 'whatever month' when they see image macros. Next year I'll try and post memes about mental health awareness month during May. I'm not as good at advocating online as I am in person- I usually use the internet to unwind and shitpost and pick fights when my meds wear off. I'll try and do better.
Yeah I like the idea behind this but the fact that out of the 12 months, this was the month that was chosen for this is fairly eyebrow raising. I'm all for men becoming better people and freeing their minds, having their own liberation movement. But then someone has to come along and specifically choose pride month for this, just making it look bad all over again. It's like men can't be happy unless it involves taking away someone else's happiness.
Yeah, if they start dating men it's only going to get worse. Their mental health.
If we assume that men who date men were already gay, bi etc. before, surely their mental health would improve compared to being fully in the closet?
it's just pride month; you don't have to be gay to be queer!
How is it unfortunate?
I'm specifying "gay" because neonazis are trying to coopt it as white pride month. While I agree that queer would be more general, many people don't like that term and while I've never seen "queer pride" mentioned, I did see "gay pride".
Both men's health (especially men's mental health) and LGBTQ rights are huge, important and frequently neglected topics, and IMO using the same month diminishes both (especially since there is considerable overlap, which would be fine if we didn't suck so much as a society when it comes to these topics). Though I suppose there's only so many months in a year so it's inevitably going to get crowded if you want to dedicate entire months to topics.
We don't need to change everything we say just because neonazis try to take it. That's literally letting them succeed in coopting the month and the term.
It's just Pride Month, and nazis can get fucked.
That observation doesnβt surprise me, since about 10% of the population is gay. Other types of queer people are a significantly smaller minority.
Also, the term queer just rolls off the tongue much easier than an acronym that never seems to be inclusive enough. I like this word better than any of the acronyms, but I can totally see why some people donβt want to be called queer.
if you refer to it as 'gay pride month' you are leaving behind the many queer people who celebrate pride and aren't gay. Most folks just call it pride now to be inclusive.
According to ddg search results, "gay pride" is actually more common than just "pride" where I live.
i'm telling you as a gay queer person that you've got it a bit old fashioned. like referring to Ukraine as The Ukraine. you can take it or leave it :)
shrug
This is a consequence of the globalization of the English language.
strikes me as more of simple stubbornness to be honest
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