Being a man in 2014: reflections on the NSW Men’s Health and Wellbeing Conference

Last week a panel discussed what it means to be a man today. This was part of  "Shaping Solutions", the NSW Men's Health and Wellbeing Conference held in Penrith, west of Sydney.

Until the 1960s, there were clear rules in most western countries about how to be a man. A man was all about work. Much of his life revolved around preparing for work, doing the work and recovering from work. Men became policemen, teachers, bank clerks or railwaymen, and joined the organisation for a lifetime., unless they went to war. Boys were junior men and spent their days preparing for life as a man. They helped their fathers around the family farm and did many outdoor jobs like milking cows, picking fruit or feeding hens. While boys worked outside, girls worked inside doing the laborious washing, drying and ironing of clothes. The two sexes lived in separate spheres. Men who didn't fit into this mould went to the city, joined the priesthood or drifted overseas.

Being a man meant the three Ps: First, men had to perform at work and earn money. Then they had to protect their wives and children. And finally they had to provide for them, for it was nearly always men who worked (women's work inside the family home and farm was not widely recognized).

Churches were part of a web of authority that held most people in place. Boys left school and went to work, always under the eye of the local churchman and other church attendees. When a girl sought approval to marry a boy, her father knew already where he went to church, how much he drank, and whether he wasted time and money gambling or playing pool. The vast majority of people married in the church of their choice. Catholics and Protestants went to different schools, in the main, lived among their own kind of people and rarely mixed with the others. Catholic kids chanted

Catholics, Catholics ring the bell
Protties, Protties, go to hell

This data came from Fathers, Sons and Lovers, a study I did in Penrith, New South Wales. It was based on males who grew up between 1930 and 1960. Colleagues have told me that much of it applies to countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the USA in the same period.

All of this began to change in the 1960s and 1970s as women moved into the workforce. Now, 'work' wasn't only done by men. Workplaces had to somehow adapt to women. The whole nature of child-rearing had to be taken into account in the workplace -and that was done reluctantly. We are still living with the consequences.

So what does it mean to be a man today? Let's make a few points in order of importance.

First, work still defines men in many ways. People ask men in social situations "What do you do?" Men are still expected to have an existence defined mainly by work. Men without a job say they are 'between jobs'. Someone who is a heart surgeon is in a different class from someone who drives a taxi all day.

Second, the wealthier you are, the more choices you have and the healthier you tend to be. A father's occupation largely determines a person's income, social standing, education level and health outcomes. Despite this general truth, Americans are the exception. Despite some wonderful hospitals and excellent practitioners, they have poorer health outcomes than 17 other 'peer countries', for a complex list of reasons including an inefficient health system, ready availability of guns and too many fast food choices.

Third, sport was always part of being a man - and that's still true. Men are expected to have an opinion about the local football team [whatever code applies]. And to be able to kick a ball and swing a bat. It's still true that if they don't fit in, non-sporty men risk attack or ridicule. When I grew up, cricket and Rugby League were really the only sports played at school most of the time. Neither was really suited to the talents of many boys, including the tall, skinny streak that I was. These days nobody much cares about cricket, apart from the crusty old fellows who give us sport on ABC TV. And schools feature a far broader spectrum of physical education, far better suited to most children.

Fourth, men were always expected to be strong. This was so they could work hard and when needed, go to war. Being strong is no longer all about having muscles so you can work; though unfortunately, men are still expected to go to war when required. Today they want us to have a great body, it seems. Popular movie heroes like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Dwayne Johnson ('The Rock') made their name by being powerful men outstanding in sport (if we can call bodybuilding a sport!) Sadly, many of the bodies being shown to us in the men's health mags are unrealistic for most of us: amazing abs, perfect pecs, fantastic teeth, to say nothing of the dick of death. Men are also expected to be sexual beings: when did you last see a Hollywood movie in which the hero wasn't shown to be successful in attracting women? And the models are usually Caucasian or acceptably exotic: Chinese or Indian heroes aren't often found in western media. Even Vladimir Putin and Tony Abbott show us their firm, hard bodies these days. Are they hoping to impress someone?

Fifth, men are expected today to have opinions about a wide range of things related to women and life in general. But they have learned to keep quiet when they might be judged as too sexist or too racist or too anything else. Their real opinions are kept for a partner or special mate. What you can say in public is very much a complex issue, for all kinds of reasons. Men aren't sure how to say what they think, and often say as little as they can. Many men lack an emotional vocabulary- something known by medical people as alexithymia. And this helps create problems when women are more likely to think they can 'talk out' a problem. Men usually just want to find a solution and be done with it.

Sixth, men in Australia today are not uniform "Australians". We are used now to talking about kinds of American males- especially according to ethnicity, region, and class. Men identify in terms of ethnicity, and sometimes religion.; e.g. "I'm Chinese-Aussie" or "I'm half Italian and half Lebanese". "I'm Indian and a Hindu". Similarly I've heard men say they are part- this or mainly-that. It's OK to be different. They still want to be patriotic, and they come out with flags to celebrate Australia Day ( or fly the Stars and Stripes in the USA. Or the Union Jack)

Seventh, there is a fluidity to men's lives today. They might start out telling themselves they are totally straight. Ten years later there might be changes in this. And changes later on too in occupation (far more than in the 1960s: the idea of a job-for-a-lifetime went out the window long ago) And changes in world-view. Men don't want to be labelled and do want freedom to choose what to be, and what to do.

Eighth, men's lives are often marred by violence and jail. Dr Hector Gonzalez at Wayne State University says that violent deaths are part of the experience of being black and Latino in the US.

And worldwide, men are by far the largest group in jails, which are themselves places where men live at risk from drugs and violent incidents. The USA appears to have the largest percentage of its population in jail, and the largest jail population in the world. "Far from serving as a model for the world, contemporary America is viewed with horror," James Whitman, a specialist in comparative law at Yale, wrote last year in Social Research about US imprisonment rates.

So it is still true, as Hobbes said, that in many cases "the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".

Finally, men want to feel special to their kids. Men can be seen today with kids in sporting venues, shopping centres and so on. They seem quite unselfconscious about being with their kids. It's part of their daily lives. Men after divorce are often devastated from the sudden loss of contact with kids. Don't forget that many gay men are also becoming dads; Ricky Martin is one of many taking part in this interesting new trend.

Where does this leave us? We've seen that men have adapted as society has changed. Once there was a black and white contrast between what men did, and were, and what women, did, and were. We now have a more complex world. Men have lost their sense of certainty about what a man was. But many of us welcome the changes. Most of all, we welcome the opportunity to spend special time with our kids and grandkids. And to find more ways of having deep and lasting friendships with people of both sexes. At the conference last week there was a range of views about men and their role. Some of the men were strongly feminist. Others were critical of feminism, especially of the more angry women usually served up by the media as part of some supposed 'gender divide'. But there was broad agreement on where we are going. We men have ways of working together, often using our sense of humour and a bit of tolerance for others.

There's been much talk of role models. People offer us Tyson Gay, Usain Bolt, Ian Thorpe,Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Roger Federer or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. These are some of the athletes searched most often on the net. Unfortunately, many of these prove to have feet of clay, misbehave in some obvious way, get caught taking certain substances or can't deal with the pressures of being in the media spotlight. In most cases, the best role model is close at hand: our own father and other males in the family. And those without a good role model must search one out. For those of us who are dads, we have to be the best dad that we can be. And that's the most important work we will ever do.