Men's Health Month
Since 1994 June has been Men's Health Month designated by Congress. Pride Month also began to be recognized in 1994 because of riots that took place in New York City in June of 1969. Over the years one has become more popular than the other in society. Today I thought I would share some statistics on the less popular one.
Keep in mind, these statistics are probably useful to know about as many people in the political world are crafting their talking points and messages for the upcoming campaign season which will kick into full force later this Summer and into the Fall.
1. There are about twice as many suicides in the USA as there are homicides.
2. Half of all gun deaths in the USA every year are self inflicted.
3. Of the almost 50,000 suicides in 2022, about 40,000 were males, 10,000 were females. Males statistically die by suicide at a rate that is 4 times greater than the female population. About 80% of suicides are male.
4. About 70% of suicides in the USA are white males, even though as a rate of suicide the highest rate is among the Native American population. (Just like every horrible statistic is worse for the Native American population)
5. About 65% of custody disputes end in awarding custody to the mother instead of the father. (But 25 years ago it was 80% of the time, so there has been some progress in making this more equal)
Biopsychosocial
This is a phrase used in academia to explain differences and disparities, because pretty much every college problem has a Biological reason, a Psychological reason, and a Social/Society reason as to why things are messed up. So some genius decided to make up a new word and biopsychosocial was born. When it comes to Men's Health, this approach is probably the best.
Biology
Men are the weaker sex biologically at the chromosomal level. The Y chromosome is about a third the size of the X chromosome, one of its only functions is the production of testosterone, which may make the skeleton and muscles stronger, but its makes the hormones and the immune system weaker. For example, the other X chromosome in a female allows their cells to adapt and fight off diseases or compensate for genetic abnormalities, for example one X chromosome may have a genetic predisposition to be susceptible to a certain kind of disease, a female has the ability for her cells to pull genes from another X chromosome to compensate for that slight genetic problem. Whereas a male, only has one X chromosome, so what they are born with is what they are stuck with forever until they die.
This partially explains why Men were more susceptible to dying during the Covid Pandemic at higher rates. Their bodies lacked an extra X chromosome to pull from to help boost their natural immunity and virus killing properties.
Men and Women tend to have the same levels of bad cholesterol but women tend to have higher levels of good cholesterol. This is partially due to the hormonal differences and metabolic differences between males and females.
Basically from a cellular point of view of human biology, it is far better to be born a female than a male.
Psychology
These differences in biology obviously cause differences between males and females in what is going on in our heads psychologically. This difference is one of life's greatest mysteries and won't be explained in this email. But here is a Stanford Magazine article that partially explains it. LINK
The summary, which I also can verify from my anecdotal real life experiences over the years. Is that psychologically a female brain is more active, it communicates from left brain to right brain better then males do, and it can recall more specific details about an emotional memory in a more intense way then men.
Men sometimes may barely remember something and be unable to recall any specifics about an emotional memory to the annoyance of their female significant other.
So if you are a female reading this, and the next time this situation arises, just remember, your brain is firing differently and more often then the male brain, and the guy isn't being insulting by his lack of memory about something, its biological and psychological that his brain just isn't wired that way.
A male brain tends to be more spatially aware, for exampled knowing distances, reading maps, fitting things into a car or a garage, tends to be something men are better at then females, because their brains tend to be more easily wired to handle those tasks.
So this is something we all tend to already know about ourselves, but also it's one of these things that we can all improve on. Hypothetically and this is at least partially backed by some science, the female brain is more easily wired to move from left brain activities to right brain activities. So to a woman when they ask a man to do a right brain thing when he is in left brain mode, the response may send off a trigger of stress inside the brain of the male, because his brain isn't as easily able to switch between the two, this results in a curse word or a visible sign of annoyance and frustration. Or vice versa.
Social
Another disadvantage men have is evolution and social groups. It is theorized by some that women form groups of friends and socializing together due to evolution. A woman's brain is almost evolutionary forced into socializing and forming strong relationships with other close female friends at some point in their life.
Whereas with men, our evolutionary default mode is more of being a hunter or gatherer. A Lone Ranger out alone in the wilderness figuring things out on their own. This has its own advantages at times, but also it makes being healthier more difficult.
Here are some Friend statistics for 2024 from this PBS report I found. HERE
1. 20% of single men do not have close friend.
2. 50% of men are unsatisfied with the size of their friend group.
3. Only 21% of men get emotional support from a friend once a week. About 41% of women get emotional support from a friend once a week.
4. 15% of men under 30 say they don't have a single friend. In 1990, it was only 3%.
The reason why politicians should care about Men's Health Month.
Women vote and many of them are Moms, who are raising sons and Moms tend to care about their children's and their husband's health.
Also. Men are half the population and they vote, and maybe hearing the importance of getting checked for cancer or something from someone else other than their Mother or their wife, may get them into a doctor's office and get that prostate cancer detected earlier then it would have been. I mean if every politician sends out tweets, instagram posts, Facebook posts, passes resolutions, and where's blue one day in June to raise awareness, and it gets just one guy into a doctor's office and gets a cancer detected earlier, and saves a life....Then it is totally worth it.
It may also get people more likely to donate to groups that help men's health, which improves research and detection and outcomes.