IMD19

Today mark’s International Men’s Day. It is a chance for many to highlight and talk with intention about some of the issues facing men. A couple of months ago i was approached by Ipswich School to see if i would be interested in helping come up with a campaign for IMD19 within the school. We had an initial meeting where we threw around ideas and discussed what would work best in a school environment. In the end it became something the entire school got involved with, introducing different activities and talking points across all year groups. It focused on a poster campaign where a diverse array of images depicting masculinity were dotted around the school. As a private school with quite conservative views and behaviours, this was an accessible way to strike up conversation and encourage the students to express their owns ideas about the images they were seeing.

As well as this they kindly invited me to speak to their 6th form students. So yesterday i walked into the theatre where they hold their morning assembly to address around 200 young people. I brought with me a selection of images, submissions to Guy Cry Club, to add another level of diversity to the images they would have seen today. Below i have included the words that i muttered with a sense of anxiousness and clarity in equal parts. Feel free to scroll down and have a read for yourself.

An image taken from Ipswich School’s poster campaign for IMD19

“Hi everyone, My name is Ben Driver and i am the Director of Guy Cry Club; a collaborative platform responding to notions of mental health and masculinity through art. I wanted to create a space where traditional ideas of what it is to be a man can be challenged, a space where every single one of us can feel encouraged and safe in expressing our own experiences. And importantly to take the focus off the use of words in detailing those perspectives. We do not all use words to communicate how we feel and the conversation surrounding men’s mental health is very much in need of a creative shake up.

And in that respect my motivation for creating Guy Cry Club is also centred on need. A need to allow others to express themselves freely, without fear of judgement and with the freedom to question outdated and in some cases just plain wrong images of manhood, ones which they may well be subject to in their own lives.

We are all affected by expectations. For too long men specifically have been told how they should act and behave, their role within society, how they should look etc etc. Though we are as a nation talking more about mental health, and trying to encourage the different strands of that conversation to blossom. As this has grown, it has uncovered more and more issues facing men. And we are still in the process of normalising a lot of those issues so that we all feel more comfortable to interact with them with confidence. In this country men are 3 times more likely to commit suicide than women. Suicide is the biggest killer of men aged under 45. The first funeral I attended was for someone younger than myself. A young man whose autism and depression led to him taking his own life. I look back to his life and think, although he had a purpose and passions, he did not have support, and he did not have an outlet of any kind to express his feelings, his struggles and the pressures that he felt.

If you take away one thing from today it is that finding your outlet, a way that you yourself feel comfortable to express yourself is invaluable. Masculinity and mental health are as diverse as the individual it inhabits. And your perspective will always be valid. Masculinity and mental health are also ideas that are experienced by everyone, regardless of your gender. And we need to bring all of those viewpoints together in order to fully understand what each of us is going through.

As most of you know it is International Men’s Day tomorrow. I would love for you all to see it as an opportunity to consider how others see masculinity and mental health, and an opportunity to express your own views about what it all means to you, in which ever way you feel comfortable doing so. But also know that it is ok to express your feelings and experiences on any other day of the year. We all have the ability and the right to be ourselves.”