Barriers to Men’s and Boys’ Wellbeing and Better Policies to Achieve Health and Happiness for All

Humans are complex, and this complexity has been a key success factor in reaching the zenith of the animal kingdom. Although biology has played an important role in human evolution, culture has also had an outsized impact, complementing our biology on the path to incredible success and achievement.

The interaction between biology and culture was crucial in helping us survive and thrive in earlier environments and challenges. However, as we have eliminated many of these past challenges, we are now working to update our cultural norms to better maximize our well-being in contemporary settings. This cultural inertia takes time to overcome. A good example of these changes includes roles, societal expectations, and responsibilities assigned to each gender.

In the early days of human society, when securing sufficient resources for the family was challenging, the world unsafe, childcare and housekeeping demanding, and child mortality high, human culture created narratives centred on the optimization of  survival. In most societies, these narratives promoted (and often insisted on) a division of labor, where men focused on securing resources for the family and taking on protective roles, while women concentrated on nurturing life, childcare, and household responsibilities. During this time, there was a special emphasis on high fertility, given the high child mortality rate and the importance in early agricultural communities of having many children to help out on the farm.

Human evolution has been strongly driven by sexual selection, which was, in turn, facilitated by our culture. A good example of this is our chromosomal sexual dimorphism. Women have two X chromosomes while men have one. Since many critical genes for brain development are located on the X chromosome, this has led to a higher variance in male brain development (as men lack the redundancy that women have in cases of mutations, both good and bad, on specific alleles on one chromosome). Consequently, there has been a higher representation of men at both the lower and higher ends of the mental capacity bell curve. Culturally, by placing higher demands on men to achieve, society has created a selection mechanism where women, in turn, select higher-value males (particularly those with higher achievements and strong abilities to dominate and secure resources). This mechanism facilitated these men to pass their genes onto the next generation, and progressively improved our gene pool.

While  women thus ensured the passing of higher-quality genes to their children and, therefore, to future generations, their male counterparts focused on maximizing quantitative reproductive success. Therefore, throughout human history, women have concentrated on the quality of the gene pool, while men have focused on quantity. This collaborative and complementary effort by men and women, emphasizing both quality and quantity, helped humans progress from cave-dwelling creatures to achieving world domination and modern advancements. Therefore, gender roles were largely an evolutionary stable strategy (to borrow a term from Richard Dawkins) and a response to evolution forces humans were exposed to.  

However, these narratives had other implications. Since men were the product of strong competition, they were often considered more capable. If men were perceived as more capable, it followed that they should be in charge of their families, institutions, governments, and community security. If men were in charge, then they should be held responsible and accountable if something went wrong. Consequently, men were expected to ensure the well-being of women (and their children). If men were responsible for women’s and the communities well-being, shouldn’t they deserve greater social status? Additionally, if men were responsible for women’s well-being, should women have the freedom to do as they wish, or should society (controlled by men) restrict their freedom in order to safeguard their well-being?

While these narratives ensured our survival and growth in the past, they also had negative consequences for both women and men. Women ended up with less freedoms and fewer opportunities to grow and achieve. Similarly, given men’s roles, their social, physical, and mental well-being was often deprioritized. In return, they received “social bribes” in the form of higher social status to compensate for their higher responsibilities and the lack of support for their welfare. 

There have been a number of developments during human progress that for some time has been making these narratives less relevant.

First, the role of technology has made many housework chores less labour intensive. For example, starting in the 1950-1960s household appliances became commonplace and have reduced the time needed for housework. These advances meant women no longer were having to invest all their time on household tasks and provided opportunities for other productive endeavors including education and working outside of the home.

Secondly, as human populations have been moving from rural areas to cities, the advantage for having large families has decreased. While children can be assets on the family farm, they are more of a liability in the city setting (Bicker and Ibbitson, 2019) since in general they do not contribute to family income but instead incur expenses. 

Given the lower required childcare and household work to raise the family and strong desire on the part of women to grow, have a higher social status, and achieve financial independence,  as well as the incredible potential for women to contribute and make a difference, many women entered the workforce and made significant contribution in all aspects of society, not to mention contributing  to the family income.

As women entered the workforce, there was also increased expectation for men to contribute to childcare and housework. Although at the beginning, many men were conscious that doing housework would impact their image of masculinity, with time there has been a  cultural paradigm shift where playing a more prominent role in childcare and housework has been less seen in conflict with masculinity and in fact part of being considered a good man. Interestingly, many men enthusiastically embraced this work and found spending time with children fulfilling. Today, in western cultures at least, most men play a significant role in childcare and housework. 

While society has undergone a profound shift in response to, and in order to further support women’s changing role, there has been very little movement in response to, let alone in support of, an equally profound shift in men’s role. In particular, men taking a more prominent role in family life has not changed the lower priority we place on men’s well being.

• Men represent about 60% of the homeless population;
• About 75% of suicide victims are men;
• Men represent about 50% of victims of domestic violence in the current relationship and 42.8% of victims of spousal and family-related homicides;
• Men are at much higher risk of drug addictions;
• Boys and men achieve lower in educational attainment;
• Men represent the majority of homicide and aggravated assault victims.
• In terms of health outcomes, men die  sooner than women (by about 4 years in Canada);
• About 90% of incarcerated adults in Canada are men. Although few would sympathize with our jailed population, we should remember they used to be little children and a product of our society.

These statistics not only impact men and boys but also have significant  consequences for their families and communities as a whole. Consider suicide. Over 150,000 Canadian families are devastated every generation due to loss of a male family member. Consider imprisonment. Each person in prison represents a cost to a victim, as well as a cost to the justice system and to the  taxpayer. 

Significantly, another consequence of this loss (be it due to suicide, imprisonment, addiction, or something else)  is the cost of these men not being able to contribute to society. Although women make significant contributions to all aspects of our society including science, medicine, law, the arts and business, men still play a disproportionate role in a number of areas. For example, men tend to contribute a higher percentage of personal as well as business income tax to government revenues. However, women tend to utilize the services such as health, education and social services paid by this tax revenue at a higher rate than men. Men also contribute to innovations at a higher rate, including about 80% of patents. Men play a disproportionate role in mentorship of women. For example about 90 percent of female teams are led by a male coaches. Although about 40% of engineering graduates today are women, about 90% of their professors are men. Finally, when men are successful in earning income, they tend to share it with their partners (as women would do with their partners), offering them more choices, for example, to be stay at home moms, to work part time, or to work full time. Therefore, ensuring the growth and success of men and boys will not only impact their future, but it will also have a great impact on the community, particularly women.

There has been the impression that the dawn of feminism, which led to greater freedom and career success for women, may have resulted in a lower success rate for men and diminished their social well-being. This view assumes that success for each gender is a zero-sum game. Feminism, in fact, has had a significantly positive impact on men. For example, as women entered the workforce, they demanded better working conditions compared to what men were accustomed to tolerating, and these demands led to improved labor laws and practices benefiting men as well. Women, by contributing to family income, also increased the standard of living for their families, including their partners. Higher labor participation by women has had another positive impact on men, as it reduced their financial responsibility toward the family and, in many cases, provided them with other career choices. In a two-income family, if one partner loses his or her job, the situation becomes less problematic than in a single income family.

Women’s sexual liberation and the advent of birth control also created more opportunities for men to have sex outside the traditional marriage framework, which used to be the only way for most men to experience an intimate relationship.

A divorce used to not only increase the risk of poverty for the wife but also pose significant financial implications for the husband, who was often obligated to support her for the rest of her life. Once women entered the workforce, this reduced the husband’s financial responsibility after a divorce.

On the other hand, an important shortcoming of feminism has been not promoting the wellbeing of men and boys by encouraging equal resources for social services and mental health, especially given men are reluctant to advocate on their own behalf. However, feminism is still evolving and it seems there are now more voices within feminist circles paying attention to this issue.

Although historical narratives assumed women to be more deserving of support—and feminism has played an important role in advocating for higher levels of resources for women—there have been other barriers to addressing issues concerning men. Interestingly, the most significant of these has been patriarchy. The concept of patriarchy is complex. For the discussion of this article, however, the essential point is that it has been a double-edged sword for men. On one hand, patriarchy  insisted on men maintaining control in society; on the other, it justified this control by enforcing narratives that ensured higher priority for resources and well-being for women compared to men.

Another barrier relates to how men validate their masculinity. One of the pillars of masculinity (especially in the western culture) has been chivalry, and men’s status has been defined by their willingness to make sacrifices for the well-being of society, especially women. Politicians are very aware of how they are judged, and, at present , most of our politicians are men. As a result, politicians feel safer publicly promoting policies that support women rather than those that support men as well.

The media’s reluctance to cover challenges faced by men has been another significant barrier, contributing to a lack of awareness about men’s issues. A memorable example is a Globe and Mail article titled Portrait of Loss (August 28, 2019) which covered the issue of suicide. The feature image showed over a dozen women each holding a cross in a meadow. The image effectively focused on their loss and suffering but did not highlight the fact that all the suicide victims were men. Similarly, in April 2014, when the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria abducted 276 girls, it rightly caused an international uproar and a call to “bring them home.” However, when the same group had burned about 50 boys alive two months earlier, it garnered little media attention. 

This reluctance on the part of the media has consequences in terms of lack of public awareness for issues men face. Given politicians get their cue from the public as to where to focus resources and policies, this translates to lower resources and action on how to better support men. For this reason, there are very few agencies and resources  targeted at men’s wellbeing and mental health. This has consequences not just for men but the whole community including women and girls.

For example, the topic of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls received a wide public attention in Canada and led to a major  inquiry on this issue. Even though the rate of missing and murdered indigenous men is 3 times higher than women, they were left out of an inquiry except as perpetrators, and no recommendations were made to reduce this serious affliction on the indigenous community. By leaving out more than half the victims we cannot address the root causes of the violence among this community and ultimately it will impact women and girls who suffer because of this flawed research.

In order to optimize wellbeing in our society, we need better policies. As there used to be biases which restricted women in opportunities, there are important biases with regards to a  lack of resources for boys and men. The following is a list of policy recommendations which will be conducive to bringing about  a more inclusive and prosperous community.

Humans are the product of many years of evolution, driven by both biology and culture, which have ensured our success. Gender roles and societal expectations have contributed to  our survival but are becoming obsolete due to recent technological and social developments. The prosperity of our communities depends on paying equal attention to both women’s and men’s well-being by ensuring sufficient resources are available for both from a young age and implementing better policies to ensure not just equality but also prosperity for the whole society.