Genevieve Creighton

Theorising masculinities and men's health: a brief history with a view to practice

Abstract Sex comparisons reveal men as more likely than women to die earlier and experience debilitating injury. Historically, this trend has been positioned as somewhat inevitable, an outcome of men’s ‘natural’ biologically charged tendencies for risk-taking and reluctance around help-seeking. More recently, gender research has emerged to describe cultural norms about masculinity and explore their relationships to men’s health and illness practices. Empirically, masculinities and men’s health research has revealed diverse practices that suggest some men’s risky health behaviours are amenable to change. This article provides a brief review of how masculinity has been understood in men’s health research before making recommendations for where we might next go in theorising social constructions of masculinities. Specifically, a vignette drawn from a study examining young men’s responses to the death of a peer is used to illustrate how the communities of practice framework can be applied, and might conceptually advance future masculinities and men’s health research.

Building Capacity for Community-Based Participatory Research for Health Disparities in Canada: The Case of “Partnerships in Community Health Research”

Enthusiasm for community-based participatory research (CBPR) is increasing among health researchers and practitioners in addressing health disparities. Although there are many benefits of CBPR, such as its ability to democratize knowledge and link research to community action and social change, there are also perils that researchers can encounter that can threaten the integrity of the research and undermine relationships. Despite the increasing demand for CBPR-qualified individuals, few programs exist that are capable of facilitating in-depth and experiential training for both students and those working in communities. This article reviews the Partnerships in Community Health Research (PCHR), a training program at the University of British Columbia that between 2001 and 2009 has equipped graduate student and community-based learners with knowledge, skills, and experience to engage together more effectively using CBPR. With case studies of PCHR learner projects, this article illustrates some of the important successes and lessons learned in preparing CBPR-qualified researchers and community-based professionals in Canada.

After the death of a friend: young men's grief and masculine identities.

Young men can have an uncomfortable relationship with grief. Socially constructed masculine ideals dictate that men be stoic in the aftermath of loss, most often expressing their sadness and despair as anger. Perhaps because of alignment to such masculine ideals little research has been done to explore young men’s grief – and chronicle the ways they think about loss, their responses and how they go about describing their identities after a tragic event. Using qualitative individual interviews and photo elicitation methods, we investigated the ways in which 25 men aged 19–25 grieved the accidental death of a male friend. The study was conducted from April 2010–December 2011. Causes of death were diverse, and included motor vehicle accidents, adventure sports, drug overdose and fights. The findings revealed men’s predominant grief responses as emptiness, anger, stoicism and sentimentality. Participants’ description of their grief responses illustrated the ways in which they struggled to reconcile feelings of vulnerability and manly ideals of strength and stoicism. We gained insight into men’s grief practices by looking at the ways in which they aligned themselves with a post-loss masculine identity. These identities, which included the adventurer, father-figure and the lamplighter, revealed gender-specific processes through which men understood and actively dealt with their tragic loss. The results offer novel insights to men’s grief and identity work that may serve to affirm other men’s experiences as well as guide counselling services targeted to young men.

Men on Fathering in the Context of Children’s Unintentional Injury Prevention

Injuries are a leading cause of death for children, and parental safety behaviors are fundamental to child injury prevention. Fathers’ perspectives are largely absent. Our novel research connects masculinities, fathering, and childhood injury. Sixteen fathers of children aged 2 to 7 years in two Canadian urban settings participated in photo-elicitation interviews detailing activities they enjoyed with their children and concerns regarding child safety. Participants described how elements of risk, protection, and emotional connection influenced their approach to fathering as it related to injury prevention. Most men considered engaging children in risk as key to facilitating development and described strategies for protecting their children while engaging in risk. Many men identified how the presence of an emotional connection to their children allowed them to gauge optimal levels of risk and protection. There exists a tremendous opportunity to work with fathers to assist in their efforts to keep their children safe.

Fathers on Child’s Play Urban and Rural Canadian Perspectives

Social trends show that contemporary fathers are spending increased time with their children and that active play and outdoor recreation are important features of their relationships. Dominant ideals of masculinity can differ by settings, which in turn guide men’s understandings and practices of fathering regarding the functions of and opportunities afforded by active play. This article draws on individual interview data from a study of fathers residing in three Canadian settings—large urban, small urban, and rural—to elucidate father masculinities and highlight similarities and differences in how men describe connections between fathering and active play with their children. Findings suggest that for large urban, small urban, and rural fathers, respectively, play functions as a means of emotional engagement, development of capacity for outdoor activities, and teaching children survival skills. We propose that the sociostructural and cultural dynamics of place shape masculine identities and influence men’s understandings of fathering.

Men, Masculinities, and Murder-Suicide.

Murder-suicide (M-S) is a complex phenomenon that can involve a multifaceted set of interrelated biological and social factors. M-S is also sexed and gendered in that the perpetrators are most often male and their underpinning motives and actions link to masculinities in an array of diverse ways. With the overarching goal to describe connections between men, masculinities, and M-S, 296 newspaper articles describing 45 North American M-S cases were analyzed. The inductively derived findings revealed three themes: (a) domestic desperation, (b) workplace justice, and (c) school retaliation. Cases in the domestic desperation theme were characterized by the murder of a family member(s) and were often underpinned by men’s self-perceptions of failing to provide economic security. Workplace justice cases emerged from men’s grievances around paid-work, job insecurity, and perceptions of being bullied and/or marginalized by coworkers or supervisors. The school retaliation cases were strongly linked to “pay back” against individuals and/or society for the hardships endured by M-S perpetrators. Prevailing across the three themes was men’s loss of control in their lives, hopelessness, and marginalized masculine identities. Also evident were men’s alignments to hegemonic masculinities in reasserting one’s masculine self by protesting the perceived marginalization invoked on them. Overall, the findings give pause to consider the need for men-centered M-S prevention strategies to quell the catastrophic impacts of this long-standing but understudied men’s health issue.

Heterosexual Gender Relations In and Around Childhood Risk and Safety

Injuries are a leading cause of child death, and safety interventions frequently target mothers. Fathers are largely ignored despite their increasing childcare involvement. In our qualitative study with 18 Canadian heterosexual couples parenting children 2 to 7 years old, we examined dyadic decision making and negotiations related to child safety and risk engagement in recreational activities. Parents viewed recreation as an important component of men’s childcare, but women remained burdened with mundane tasks. Most couples perceived men as being more comfortable with risk than women, and three negotiation patterns emerged: fathers as risk experts; mothers countering fathers’ risk; and fathers acknowledging mothers’ safety concerns but persisting in risk activities. Our findings suggest that contemporary involved fathering practices privilege men in the outdoors and can erode women’s control for protecting children from unintentional injury. We recommend promoting involved fathering that empowers both parents and developing injury-prevention strategies incorporating both fathers’ and mothers’ perspectives.

Men’s depression and suicide literacy: a nationally representative Canadian survey

Abstract Background: Male suicide prevention strategies include diagnosis and effective management of men’s depression. Fundamental to suicide prevention efforts is public awareness, which in turn, is influenced by literacy levels about men’s depression and suicide. Aim: The aim of this study is to examine sex differences in mental health literacy with respect to men’s depression and suicide among a cohort of Canadian respondents. Methods: About 901 English-speaking Canadian men and women completed online survey questionnaires to evaluate mental health literacy levels using 10-item D-Lit and 8-item LOSS questionnaires, which assess factual knowledge concerning men’s depression and suicide. Statistical tests (Chi-square, z-test) were used to identify significant differences between sex sub-groups at 95% confidence. Results: Overall, respondents correctly identified 67% of questions measuring literacy levels about male depression. Respondents’ male suicide literacy was significantly poorer at 53.7%. Misperceptions were especially evident in terms of differentiating men’s depressive symptoms from other mental illnesses, estimating prevalence and identifying factors linked to male suicide. Significant sex differences highlighted that females had higher literacy levels than men in regard to male depression. Conclusions: Implementing gender sensitive and specific programs to target and advance literacy levels about men’s depression may be key to ultimately reducing depression and suicide among men in Canada.

Photovoice Ethics: Critical Reflections From Men’s Mental Health Research

As photovoice continues to grow as a method for researching health and illness, there is a need for rigorous discussions about ethical considerations. In this article, we discuss three key ethical issues arising from a recent photovoice study investigating men’s depression and suicide. The first issue, indelible images, details the complexity of consent and copyright when participant-produced photographs are shown at exhibitions and online where they can be copied and disseminated beyond the original scope of the research. The second issue, representation, explores the ethical implications that can arise when participants and others have discordant views about the deceased. The third, vicarious trauma, offers insights into the potenial for triggering mental health issues among researchers and viewers of the participant-produced photographs. Through a discussion of these ethical issues, we offer suggestions to guide the work of health researchers who use, or are considering the use of, photovoice.

“You’ve Gotta Be That Tough Crust Exterior Man”: Depression and Suicide in Rural-Based Men:

Suicide rates in Canada are highest among rural men. Drawing on photovoice interviews with 13 women and two men living in a small rural Canadian town who lost a man to suicide, we inductively derived three themes to describe how contextual factors influence rural men’s experiences of depression and responses to suicidal thoughts: (a) hiding depression and its cause, (b) manly self-medicating, and (c) mobilizing prevention. Further discussed is how gender relations and ideals of masculinity within rural milieu can inhibit men’s acknowledgment of and help seeking for mental illness issues. Participants strongly endorsed a multifaceted approach to the destabilization of dominant ideals of masculinity that likely contribute to depression and suicide in rural men.