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Boys do cry: The support groups freeing men from toxic masculinity
Feb 20, 2020 3 mins, 11 secs
Men's support groups are popping up across the UK to get men to talk it out, offering them regular connection and community as they redefine what it means to be a man — together.

The mental health charity offers anonymous and non-clinical support meetings for men.

However, like Hawkins, many patients who subsequently sought support group help said they too were provided just six sessions.

(Mashable agreed to alter the names of support group attendees like Gary, who opened up about sensitive subjects, to protect their privacy.).

As Liz Plank, author of For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity, said in a phone interview, "these pressures are encoded in men." Take, for example, shame: "a topic that we as women are increasingly comfortable being vulnerable with each other about," Plank said.

A 2018 survey of over 2,000 men and women commissioned by the Movember Foundation, which raises awareness about men's health issues, found "nearly half (47 percent) of men are unable to confide in friends about their problems, compared to 63 percent of women who do." Nearly a third of men said they have no friends at all. .

"Men simply don't to go to see the GP," said Paul Bannister, the founder of ManHealth, a charity support group network in northern England for men struggling with mental health issues.

Men are both desperate for a new model for masculinity and vulnerable to violent ideologies and blaming others, support group leaders and psychologists said. .

"When a guy presents himself as struggling with mental-ill health, the general practitioners refer them to us." That's why their group leaders are certified Mental Health First Aiders who go through a rigorous amount of training, including suicide awareness courses.

ManHealth, like most support groups, offers voluntary drop-ins that are accessible immediately and free of charge. .

At the same time, their reliance on being volunteer- or peer-led raises questions about who is allowed to market themselves as a men's group guru.

Each of the support group founders I spoke with said the focus on a peer-led setting is strategic.

"You know, the sort of 'I don't need to be told by some feminist what's right for me,'" the University of Redlands psychology professor, who ran his first men's support group in 1981 as a social experiment, said.

That rejection of the game has been weaponised by the Men's Rights Movement (MRM), which is essentially branded as an alternative support group for (mostly white) men who feel like they've lost their privileged position in society.

Subreddits like r/MGTOW (which stands for Men Going Their Own Way) are framed like this, said Verity Trott, a lecturer at Monash University researching the culture of toxic masculinity.

"Even Incel spaces have attracted young men who felt like misfits," said Trott

MKP alone has support groups held in 26 countries (predominantly in the West), where they “serve around 10,000 guys weekly or biweekly,” said Boysen Hodgson, the communications and marketing director for MKP in the States

Both Evryman and MKP have branched out beyond support groups to offer bonding experiences like weekend retreats and initiations — $475 to $975 for an Evryman retreat, $675 on average for MKP’s initiation. 

The main concern is that while these groups aim to deconstruct the effects of toxic masculinity on men, they rarely consider the effect it has on women, too

For instance, discussions, debates, weekend retreats that brand themselves as seeking to battle toxic masculinity without broaching topics, like the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and the important role men have in actively battling against it, highlight cracks in the foundation

And that's part of the problem, really, because men shouldn't feel like they can only open up to other men

Men's support groups shouldn't be a replacement for essential healthcare services, but, especially in the UK, many are

For numerous men, these support groups, for all their limitations, can feel like their only option

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