Fanatical's Movember Charity Bundle Contains Great Games With All Proceeds Going To Charity

2 comments on “Fanatical's Movember Charity Bundle Contains Great Games With All Proceeds Going To Charity”

1. According to psychologist, psychotherapist and author Tom Falkenstein (The Highly Sensitive Man, 2019, Ch.1), “numerous psychological studies over the last forty years tell us that, despite huge social change, the stereotypical image of the ‘strong man’ is still firmly with us at all ages, in all ethnic groups, and among all socio-economic backgrounds. …

   “You only have to open a magazine or newspaper, turn on your TV, or open your browser to discover an ever-growing interest in stories about being a father, being a man, or how to balance a career with a family. Many of these articles have started talking about an apparent ‘crisis of masculinity’.

   "The headlines for these articles attempt to address male identity, but often fall into the trap of sounding ironic and sometimes even sarcastic and critical. They all seem to agree to some extent that there is a crisis. But reading these articles one gets the impression that no one really knows how to even start dealing with the problem, let alone what a solution to it might look like.

   “One also gets the impression from these articles that we need to keep any genuine sympathy for these ‘poor men’ in check: the patriarchy is still just too dominant to allow ourselves that luxury.”

   Dr. Falkenstein also writes: “In the face of problems, men tend not to seek out emotional or professional help from other people. They use, more often than women, alcohol or drugs to numb unpleasant feelings and, in crises, tend to try to deal with things on their own, instead of searching out closeness or help from others. …

   “While it is true that a higher percentage of women than men will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or a depressive episode, the suicide rate among men is much higher. In the United States, the suicide rate is notably higher in men than in women.

   “According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, men account for 77 percent of the forty-five thousand people who kill themselves every year in the United States. In fact, men commit suicide more than women everywhere in the world.

   "Men are more likely to suffer from addiction, and when men discuss depressive symptoms with their doctor, they are less likely than women to be diagnosed with depression and consequently don't receive adequate therapeutic and pharmacological treatment.”

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2. Half of “Movember” — that being the month of November’s designation to publicly addressing men’s (though it should also include boys’) health issues — had elapsed before I, a daily news consumer, heard or read anything about it in the news or social media.

   That may have been just coincidental, but there still remains much platitudinous lip-service on this matter, especially when it comes to proactive mental illness prevention and treatment for males. Various mainstream news and social media will state the obvious, that society must open up its collective minds and common dialogue when it comes to far more progressively addressing the challenge of more fruitfully treating and preventing such illness in general.

   But they will generally fail to properly practically respond to the problem of males refusing to ask for help due to their fear of being perceived by peers, etcetera, as weak/non-masculine. The social ramifications exist all around us; indeed, it is endured, however silently, by males of/with whom we are aware/familiar or to whom so many of us are closely related.

   The mindset maintains, albeit perhaps subconsciously: Men can take care of themselves, and boys are basically little men. It’s the mentality that might help explain why the author of Childhood Disrupted was only able to include one male among its six interviewed subjects, there presumably being such a small pool of ACE-traumatized males willing to formally tell his own story of traumatic childhood adversity.

   To get anywhere, including rectifying the notably disproportionately low number of male students attending post-secondary or higher education institutions, males need to have the same strong mainstream-media (news, social and entertainment) support that females have had for decades, and still do. Instead, males have observed thus known that, for the most part, they have not been taken seriously, at least not on this front. If anything, the media are generally cynical toward their cause.

   I even recall a metro-daily newspaper editor sarcastically referencing some neglected males as “the poor little boys” in a brief phone call with me. Her attitude clearly rang with incredulity, that males can’t really be a social/societal victim group.

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