Healthy Men Bottle Up Their Emotions…

Levant, R., Wimer, D., & Williams, C. (2011). An evaluation of the Health Behavior Inventory-20 (HBI-20) and its relationships to masculinity and attitudes towards seeking psychological help among college men. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 12 (1), 26-41 DOI: 10.1037/a0021014

Wherever did that super streamlined hypothesis, tying into a tight knot a rigid association between masculine ideals, men’s alleged risk-taking behaviours and their reluctance to seek professional help for their physical and mental health problems, come from? I confess that I myself have been guilty many times of drawing dodgy dots between what are essentially discrete yet complex phenomena, both within individual male subjects and between and across groups of men. It sounds plausible, right, since it has become so culturally embedded that men bottle things up until they quite literally explode.

I wonder…

• What are men actually bottling up?
• Are they bottling up anything at all?
• Is it necessarily ‘bad’ to bottle things up?

We do know that many men make choices that are detrimental to their own health and well-being: they drink too much, smoke too much, eat too much fatty food, drive too recklessly, fuck too unsafely, etc. (Levant et al. 2011, p.26). However, the choice to engage in objectively harmful behaviours cannot easily be transformed into a grand narrative that not only encompasses a rationale for why some men so act but further, why they would rather die than be caught dead in any old doctor’s waiting room. How all these disparate threads then get so neatly drawn together is as astonishing as it is incredulous.

With this article by Levant et al. (2011, pp.26-27), I saw the possibility for some fresh thinking on this issue ostensibly squandered by the authors’ predilection for remaining trapped within the orthodox, normative prism that men are predominantly the products of their male socialisation. Herein the desire to ‘fit in’ ostensibly trumps individual agency and thus, how men ‘do’ gender in the real world. While substantive evidence to support such a life-limiting proposition is decidedly thin on the ground, particularly when it comes to which specific aspects determine what specific behaviours (Levant et al. 2011, p.27), it is almost as mere repetition of the words renders them absolute:

‘Masculine gender socialization is often cited as a major reason why men engage in poorer health behaviors than women (Courtenay, 2000a). Moreover, masculine gender socialization is also the major reason why men are significantly less likely than women are to seek help for both mental health [p.27] (Addis & Mahalik, 2003; Levant, Wimer, Williams, Smalley, & Noronha, 2009; Mahalik, Good, & Englar-Carlson, 2003) and physical health (Wyke, Hunt, & Ford, 1998). Masculine gender socialization thus appears to create a ‘double whammy’ effect because it is associated with both poorer health behaviors and a reduced likelihood of using appropriate health resources when needed’.

By interviewing 323, predominantly young, white, straight college (university) students at two public universities in the United States, the authors (2011, p.26, p.28, & p.33) arrived at several interesting conclusions, including that…

• ‘[G]reater willingness to seek psychological help is associated with greater health promotion behaviors, whereas greater overall conformity to masculine norms is associated with less health promotion behavior’ (2011, p.36)

• ‘[G]reater conformity to the masculine norms of controlling emotions and making work the top priority in one’s life are associated with greater avoidance of anger and stress, and thus may be health protective factors for this dimension of health behavior’ (2011, p.37)

• ‘[G]reater conformity to the masculine norms of dominance and self-reliance, and greater endorsement of traditional masculinity ideology, is associated with less avoidance of anger and stress, and thus may be health risk factors for this dimension of health behavior’ (2011, p.37)

• ‘[G]reater conformity to the masculine norm of winning is associated with greater avoidance of substance use, and thus may be a health protective factor for this dimension of health behavior’ (2011, p.37)

• ‘[G]reater income, greater conformity to the masculine norms of dominance and playboy behavior, and greater gender role conflict in the area of restrictive emotionality are all associated with less avoidance of substance use, and thus may be health risk factors for this dimension of health behavior’ (2011, p.37)

• ‘[G]reater conformity to the masculine norms of dominance and making work the top priority in one’s life is associated with greater preventive self-care, and thus may be a health protective factor for this dimension of health behavior’ (2011, p.37)

• ‘[G]reater conformity to the masculine norm of pursuit of status is associated with less preventive self-care, and thus may be a health risk factor for this dimension of health behavior’ (2011, p.37)

• ‘[G]reater income, greater willingness to seek psychological help, and greater endorsement of traditional masculinity ideology are all associated with greater proper use of health care resources and thus may be health protective factors (2011, pp.37-38)

• ‘[G]reater conformity to the masculine norms of risk taking and playboy behavior, and greater gender role conflict in the area of restrictive emotionality were associated with less proper use of health care resources, and thus may be health risk factors for this dimension of health behavior’ (2011, pp.37-38)

In conclusion, Levant et al. (2011) concede that the ‘relationship between health behaviors and masculinity’ is ‘complex’ (p.38). For example, what might ordinarily be described as men avoiding help for their psychological problems, can conversely be characterised as the ‘ability [of men] to focus on important matters and [to] ignore the small stuff ‘ (2011, p.39). A risk can become protective health behaviour, just like that. However, by trying to squeeze all that complexity into the golden egg that is ‘masculine gender socialization,’ the authors (2011, p.39) have run decidedly off the rails. Look instead, I say, to the intricacies of how any one man in any discrete setting makes choices about whether to seek help for his psychological problems, or not…

Context is (almost) everything…