Guyside: dispatches from the men’s foxhole
It’s been a weird seven days up here in Canada. Last Wednesday, a man appeared at our national war memorial and shot to death one of the ceremonial guards, then made his way to our House of Commons (think Congress), was pinned down by security, then shot and killed by our Sergeant-at-Arms. This happened while essentially all of our elected representatives were having weekly caucus meetings within a few metres of where the shooter was stopped. That attack came on the heels of an incident where two soldiers at a shopping mall were run down in the parking lot. One of those soldiers died of his injuries.
Then on Friday, a very high-profile national radio host (think Terry Gross level) named Jian Ghomeshi announced he was taking a leave from his show Q. By Sunday night, his employer, CBC had announced he was fired, allegations of sexual misbehaviour were flying, he published a 1600-word post on Facebook explaining that yes, he was given to BDSM-type behaviour in the bedroom and that this was all the product of a jilted girlfriend, and he was filing a $55-million lawsuit against his employer. Meanwhile, an utter typhoon of drastically divided opinion swirled.
On Monday, a Member of Parliament wrote another note on Facebook (since removed) alleging that an unnamed prominent political reporter had tried to coerce a Hill staffer into sexual improprieties by blackmailing her with embarrassing information that was released when she didn’t accede to his demands.
And yesterday, a video was released of a woman walking the streets of Manhattan to what seemed to be a neverending stream of catcalls and inappropriate come-ons. When I posted the video on my Facebook profile and asked how it resonated with women I knew, the results were not surprising but utterly disheartening — more than a dozen had stories to tell of truly creepy encounters, starting with “hey baby” and escalating to things that would freak me out if they happened to me.
What’s all this have in common? They all revolve around perceptions and expectations of masculinity.
Parliamentary Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers was widely hailed as a hero for his sangfroid and dignity during and after the shooting incident. The Ghomeshi and unnamed reporter stories highlighted the perception — and the reality — that men in powerful positions are often able to engage in heinous behaviour with little consequence. And the “catcall video” is a vivid demonstration that reality for women is utterly different than for me.
This stuff isn’t “women’s problems” — it’s OUR problem as men, and beyond being a good man myself, I just don’t know how to make a contribution to fixing these problems.
Read MoreGuyside: feeling tension over hypertension
A crying shame?
I recently picked up the telephone to a shocking call. A friend had been terminated at his job, and was calling to let me know not to use his work-issued mobile phone or email address.
It was shocking for a couple of reasons. First, even as I head towards 50, I am still naive enough to think that competent, “good” people are never fired. Second, it was only one of a very few occasions on which I can remember my friend choking up.
We men tend to be far less likely to cry than women. A report from the American Psychiatric Association in February suggests that women cry about five times as much as men.
Some point to hormonal differences in men and women as one reason for this difference in teariness.
And others point to the childhood socialization men receive. There’s a reason that the band 10cc had a big hit with their song “I’m not in love” with its iconic “Big boys don’t cry” spoken line. It resonated. And still does.
I’m not much of a crier. I’m more of the occasional leaker. I haven’t had the proverbial “good cry” since my mother’s death earlier this year. I did have one of those after my father died in 2012. But beyond that, I’m more of the person who wipes a tear away, often inspired by a moving performance of a song, than the person who sobs or needs a wad of tissues.
Humour: pretty decent medicine
The Royals had court jesters to supply them with humour. What’s your source?
When I was a kid, my parents subscribed to Reader’s Digest. In addition to the “I am Joe’s Kidney” features, I remember the humour columns, like “Humour in Uniform,” “Life’s Like That,” and my joke-obsessed-kid favorite, “Laughter, the best medicine.” It’s still there, at least here in Canada. In addition to the monthly magazines, our house had a bunch of anthologies of funnies that would have come with “Reader’s Digest Condensed Books” (not to be confused with Condensed Milk, apparently).
I don’t know if those jokes got me into being funny early on, but something did. Humour has been part of my life pretty much as long as I can think, for both positive purposes — if you’re thought of as ‘the smart one’ in school, ‘the funny one’ is a big step up — and for negative — I spent a lot of years using jokes and humour to keep people away from any real feelings I might have had.
But when it comes to health, humour is pretty decent medicine. Trust me on this one. As a bladder cancer guy, I have had multiple people dealing with the areas I normally only show one person over a period of years — and being in a city with a med school and multiple health science programs means that you’re not only dealing with the urologist / nurse / sonographer / whatever, you’re dealing with residents / interns / students… Sometimes the only way to deal with the more embarrassing parts of the whole affair is to crack wise. I think it helps them too.
But there’s more to humour than just dispersing embarrassment. There’s lots of research that shows humour can help when you’re ill, and help before you get ill. One study of prostate cancer support groups found that for participants, humour is a way of sharing information about their health and feelings that doesn’t leave the men feeling vulnerable. Given what we already know about men’s unwillingness to be open about their health, that’s a valuable thing.
There can be a dark side to humour, though, especially as men sometimes use it. Sometimes jokes can be couched in mean or insulting terminology, and sometimes (as I know to my regret!) humour that works in one context doesn’t in another. I’ve made some jokes about cancer that have gotten a laugh from some people and dropped jaws elsewhere.
Ask yourself if you have enough laughter in your life. If not, find ways of seeking it out or making your own fun. It may not be the best medicine — if you have a heart attack, I’d recommend a bypass rather than a Marx brothers marathon — but it’s more important than you might think.
CC-licenced photo by Flickr user neiljs
Read MoreGuyside: Fall food thoughts that aren’t hard to swallow.
This may or may not resemble your humble columnist at a barbecue.
Fall is a wonderful season. If you live in a climate where heat and humidity dominate summer, you start to feel relief. Autumn colours make the world beautiful. And (at least for me), food begins to change along with the season.
I love to grill food, and in our household, we take advantage of warm summer days to cook and eat outside as much as we can. But as days get shorter and cooler, we start to move the cooking inside, and that changes the nature of the dishes that get prepared too.
It’s already known that men tend to eat less healthily than women. And It’s really easy for men (and by men I mean me) to enjoy the grilling season a little too much. Sausages, thick steaks, ribs, rich barbecue sauces and the like are great in moderation, but easy to overdo. Even some of the salads I associate with summer have rich dressings that might reduce the benefits of all those healthy veggies. And none of this even begins to address some of the junky food that we eat as the day goes on.
I try to take fall as a sign to revisit what I eat a little bit. I’m not going to go macrobiotic or vegan, but it’s never a bad thing to examine your food choices every so often. Here’s some of the things I do:
- I’m the main cook in our household, so I do a few simple things to make food both good and healthy when shorter days come. I shop from a list, and stock up on basics that I know will get used up over time without going bad. If I’m making a dish that requires some perishable ingredient, I find other dishes to make that will use up that ingredient. For example, I made a pork curry on the weekend that needed ginger root. So during the rest of this week, there’s also a chicken tikka recipe that used ginger root and tonight is pork chops marinated in ginger.
- I try and make some healthy substitutions of ingredients or techniques where I can. Rather than white rice, I’ll use brown rice, or even better, brown basmati rice. Rather than make French fries in a skillet, I do ‘em in the oven. I’ll also switch up sweet potatoes for plain old potatoes. And I try to make things like marinades, dressings, and the like from scratch rather than use store-bought ones. It’s usually cheaper and better.
- The biggest additions to the menu in the fall are soups and slow-cooker meals. Soups or slow-cooker dishes usually mean multiple days are covered, making for stress-free cooking days if my partner and i are busy, and scratch soups are pretty simple to make. Nutritious and delicious works for me.
My big weakness? Lunches. I work from home, so I get to make lunches rather than eat out every day, but my instincts are to have a canned soup (lots of sodium) or a sandwich (processed meat); not always the best choices. So perhaps this fall I’ll try to do better with my lunch choices.
Maybe it’s time for you to take a look at what you cook and eat.
Photo: CC-licenced from the US Marine Corps Archives on Flickr.
Read MoreGuyside: Men, health, and denial.
I can’t believe I’m writing a post here inspired by Rob Ford. And yet, here I go.
This is not about Rob Ford’s politics, or about his consumption of various substances both licit and il. This is about male denial around health issues. The famous (notorious?) mayor of Toronto’s 2014 re-election campaign was derailed by the announcement that a tumour had been discovered in his abdomen on September 9. The tumour is, apparently, being analyzed in preparation for treatment at a Toronto hospital.
One of the things that leapt out at me from the first stories about this latest roller-coaster development in the Ford story was this quote from a story in the Toronto Star:
Ford was complaining of “left, lower quadrant abdominal pain” for three months before the pain became “unbearable” Wednesday morning, Devlin said.
Since the initial tests on Ford, he’s also apparently had a lung biopsy, and an update on his health is expected later today (September 17, as I write this.)
Combine this with two other facts: one, that Ford’s father died in 2006 of colon cancer, and two, that Ford had a tumour on his appendix in 2009 that necessitated the removal of his appendix and part of his colon, and you have what appears to be the classic case of a man refusing to seek medical assistance. I’m no psychic, but I don’t have a good feeling about this.
In this, Ford is far from alone. A 2005 literature review in the Journal of Advanced Nursing showed that men are much less likely to seek medical help than women for disorders ranging from psychological disorders to physical disabilities. One UK study identified men’s refusal to seek help as the most important medical issue for men. And another UK report points out that while men are considered “advantaged” in many areas (salaries, for example), our health outcomes are worse than women’s.
Whether it’s machismo, stoicism, putting work or other factors before health, or something else, too many men are ignoring symptoms, assuming they’ll go away, or simply lying to themselves about their health. And it’s costing people their lives. One of the saddest findings of the Men’s Health Forum report is that when men do present themselves for assistance, the disease in question is too often at a later, more serious stage. Another sad fact is that men are far less likely to seek assistance for psychological conditions like depression.
When I first saw blood in my urine in 2006, I did two things: told my partner and went to my clinic. My bladder cancer was discovered at an early stage, and I’ve been lucky enough to not require radiation, chemo, or catheterization from more severe forms of cancer. If I’d shrugged off that first sign, what might have happened?
For your own sake, and the sake of those who love you: go to your doctor, your nurse-practitioner, or whatever other health professional you ought to go to, especially when something unusual happens.
Creative Commons-licenced photo by Flickr user Alistair Gilfillan.
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