It's hard to miss the welcome return of socially democratic leadership since KRudd's landed. Despite a minor slip-up on the Bill Henson debacle (a debate which might have been a touch ultra vires for our reliably nerdy, Christian diplomat - especially with Killface in the Arts ministry), a questionable approach to the working conditions of his staff, and a mere mismanagement of media when Brendan Nelson thrusted his flimsy foil around FuelWatch (check out that double-headed alliteration!), I've been consistently feeling the relaxation reflex as our lower quadrants get the Rudd treatment.
After all those years of disquiet while Brows ruled the roost, the relative warmfuzziness of our honeymoon's almost daily dish of progressive policy initiatives is just what my doctor ordered... which is a stunning segueway into the point of this post: Today, reading my daily Capital Monitor feed from the Federal Government, I noted Nicola Roxon MP (Federal Minister for Health and Ageing) announcing that the Government is developing Australia's first ever National Men's Health Policy "in recognition of the fact that men often have poorer health than women, are likely to die earlier, and are at greater risk of suicide".
I was chatting about it with my friend Simon at lunch today, and we were both genuinely surprised to read in the press release that:
- Men are expected to live 4.8 years less than women
- Men are three times more likely to commit suicide
- Men experience 70 per cent of the burden of disease related to injury
- Men are over-represented in deaths related to HIV/AIDS.
- The health of Indigenous men is also significantly worse than for any other group in Australia, with an average life expectancy of only 59 years – some 20 years less than non-Indigenous Australian males.
I was a touch turned-off by the narrative of the press release. Notwithstanding my strong support for measures like this, I found it a little disheartening that the Government saw it necessary to explain the "specific health needs and challenges" of Australian men by reference to women. I'd feel far more comfortable with a position that merely recognises discrete gender observances which generate from census data without pitting it against the other.
But, my petty nitpicking on narrative issues aside, the broader import of the initiative is wonderful. To mark the start of International Men’s Health Week, the Minister is launching the paper "Setting the Scene: Developing a Men’s Health Policy for Australia".
As an initial downpayment on a broader approach, the Government will invest:
- $122,000 for the Men's Health Information and Resource Centre Men's Shed, University of Western Sydney;
- $80,000 for the Toowoomba Older Men’s Network (TOMNet);
- $150,000 for OZHelp Tasmania, a workplace program;
- $117,000 for INCOLink in Victoria to undertake suicide prevention with apprentices in the building and construction industry;
- $460,000 to help prevent suicide in men, through the National Suicide Prevention Strategy; and
- $95,000 to encourage men to see their GP.
That last measure rang alarm bells for me. As is well documented on this blog, I'm recovering from terrible bout of illness born largely from a (completely unconscious) macho zero-self care policy I held for many years. I was discussing it only yesterday with a friend of mine who at 30 has just been diagnosed with testicular cancer. He'd been noticing his testicle increasing in size for about a year, but maintained a "she'll be right" mentality while the cancer took hold. It's shocks like these which are bringing me so deeply into my own of late. Shocks which remind me, at this thankfully crucial crossroad of age and development, that I need to take good care of myself.
So why don't we? For me, it's been the recognition that I'm not superman, and don't have to be. The recognition that I can be loved without first performing. That I don’t need to overwork myself. That I don't need to be everything to everyone to receive affection and affiliation. It’s taken years for me to realise that, after being enculturated to cop it on the chin and keep moving. I feel deeply for all those who don’t realise it before they’ve crossed over the point of no return. I see them everyday, broken, alone, overworked, confused, and I’m scared of them – scared of what I could have so easily become.
Simon and I spoke at length today about a core manifestation of this take-no-prisoners approach to living: our respective bouts with work-addiction. It’s cost us both a lot more than we’d bargained (or earned in the process). Like me, he was depressed and anxious for three years while his clumsy pleas went unheard by those he loved most. Busted, broken, forgotten, we weren’t of any use to eachother either. We were both talking about the dismay we’d felt in coming to terms with the way a public sphere dominated by conservative social policy permeated our private spheres so silently. We both lamented the aspirational pressure we’d felt trying to fit a mould we weren’t raised fit in: demanding careers, failing families and financial uncertainty despite hitherto unimaginable incomes. We both buckled to the bemusement of our hypnotised friends and families. He said beautifully: “They didn’t know either, they didn’t have experience with ‘those words’ coming from ‘my voice’”.
But the conversation wasn’t all doom and gloom. He’s got help, like me, and things are on the up. We spoke about the how the promise of our new outlook, our new jobs, our new loves, our new leaders, our new dreams – of the new times – might actually finally bolster us in our new selves.
And then we paused together for a moment, for what seemed like the first time since we were boys (from Bankstown).
