Much of the political world is reeling from last weeks Presidential verdict, not necessarily by who won, but by how much he won by.

Chair of the Men and Boys Coalition, and co-founder of the UK Men's Day Committee; Ally Fogg is an iconoclastic journalist, writer, and Twitter troll, who has been working tirelessly behind the scenes of British men and boys advocacy for decades.

Richard Reeves is a policy expert, and the President of the newly formed American Institute of Boys and Men.His book, Of Boys and Men, which peers into the hidden truth of how far behind men and boys are in education and health, was a huge success; read across the world, and came widely recommended, even by former President Barack Obama himself. Reeves was also recently awarded an unprecedented $20,000,000 by philanthropist Melinda French Gates, to be distributed by the AIBM in ways to enrich the lives of boys and men. He is in many ways, leading the movement of men and boys advocacy, injecting such issues into the main stream in new and exciting ways – that is not without controversy.Here is a conversation I had with Richard in September, that understands his work, his motives, his hopes and dreams, and his response to those who might question his methods.You can see Richard's work at https://aibm.org/Subscribe to his Substack at https://ofboysandmen.substack.com/Or by his book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Boys-Men-mod...

Emeritus Professor Dr Don Dutton has written, hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, more than eight books and textbooks, won dozens of grants, and served as an expert witness in nearly 100 legal cases, including appearing for the prosecution in the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson.

Susie Bennett is a PhD researcher from the Suicidal Behavior Research Laboratory at the University of Glasgow.

In early 2021 Susie and myself worked together to capture new data on suicidality in men, capturing the insights of an incredible three thousand men across eighty countries worldwide. Now Susie is back and joining me to share her early findings to help widen the conversation of male suicide, to look into this and previous studies to help us better understand what is going on with our men.

Need someone to talk to?

NHS 24.  Health Information and Self Care Advice, www.nhs.uk – Tel: 111

The HUMEN Space (Worldwide), www.wearehumen.org/

CALM (campaign against living miserably), thecalmzone.net – Helpline 0800 58 58 58 –  London 080 802 58 58

Papyrus, www.papyrus-uk.org – Telephone:  0800 068 41 41

The Mix, Telephone: 0808 808 4994

Men's Minds Matter: mensmindsmatter.org/

Andy's Club: andysmanclub.co.uk

Maytree (London): maytree.org.uk/

The Listening Place (London): listeningplace.org.uk/

James' Places (Liverpool): jamesplace.org.uk/

Sean's Place (Liverpool): seansplace.org.uk/

Music: Art of Silence by Uniq

In early 2021 Susie and myself worked together to capture new data on suicidality in men, capturing the insights of an incredible three thousand men across eighty countries worldwide. Now Susie is back and joining me to share her early findings to help widen the conversation of male suicide, to look into this and previous studies to help us better understand what is going on with our men. 

Need someone to talk to?

NHS 24.  Health Information and Self Care Advice, www.nhs.uk – Tel: 111

The HUMEN Space (Worldwide), www.wearehumen.org/

CALM (campaign against living miserably), thecalmzone.net – Helpline 0800 58 58 58 –  London 080 802 58 58

Papyrus, www.papyrus-uk.org – Telephone:  0800 068 41 41

The Mix, Telephone: 0808 808 4994

Men's Minds Matter: mensmindsmatter.org/

Andy's Club: andysmanclub.co.uk

Maytree (London): maytree.org.uk/

The Listening Place (London): listeningplace.org.uk/

James' Places (Liverpool): jamesplace.org.uk/

Sean's Place (Liverpool): seansplace.org.uk/

Music: Art of Silence by Uniq

River Hawkins is an actor, founder and CEO of HUMEN, a UK based charity that offers free, anonymous, judgement free and non clinical spaces for men to talk.

The charity is the result of River’s own story; a story of struggle, pain and being let down by an outdated and underfunded healthcare system.

It’s also a journey of transformation, one of global ambition and of true advocacy – not just through talk, but through real change.

Join the journey here: wearehumen.org

And donate to HUMEN

Follow HUMEN at @humenorg and TheTinMen at @thetinmen

Sources discussed, in order:

[1] 3,600 refuge beds for women and twenty beds for men – The Independent (correction, these are figures for England, not the UK) 

[2] 76% of UK suicides are men – The CALM Zone

[3] Men rapidly losing friends – Survey Centre on American Life

[4] Mark Green  – Why calling it 'Toxic Masculinity' Isn't Helping

[5] Adverse Childhood Experience and Incarceration - The Independent

[6] Adult Psychiatric Outcomes of Bullying - Psycnewsdaily

[7] 96% of sexual offences against men goes unreported – The BBC  

[8] The Sexual Offences Act – Legislation.gov.uk

[9] 'Forced to Penetrate' rape statistics – Lara Stemple, The Atlantic, NCVS, (correction, it's 38% of sexual violence victims are men, not 37%)

[10] The Duluth Model – theduluthmodel.org

[11] 91% of middle aged men who took their own life, had sought help – University of Manchester (correction, this is a separate study to Amy Chandler's)

[12] Masculinities and suicide: unsettling ‘talk’ as a response to suicide in men – Amy Chandler 

[13] Men make up 88% of homeless deaths in the UK – Office for National Statistics 

[14] Boys are twice as likely to be behind in school – BBC

[15] Men die younger in every country on earth – Harvard Medical School 

[16] Why men quit therapy (AUS) – American Journal of Men's health

Music: Art of Silence by Uniq

Erin Pizzey opened the world's first domestic violence refuge for women, exactly 50 years ago.

Looking back, her story is one of two halfs. The first is one of admiration, love, compassion and praise, and the other is one of vilification, fear, ostracization and violence.

It was Erin's brave advocacy for abused men that separated the two.

She refused to see domestic violence as a gendered crime, as her experience both personally and within the refuge taught her that men were equally affected by domestic abuse as women were.

It was at this point that the admiration stopped. And Erin was put in the firing line of public condemnation, outrage, harassment and ultimately, bomb threats.

But she's still here, 50 years on, with the same ideas, the same bravery and the same story.

So let's share it.

~

Music: Art of Silence by Uniq

And follow us on Instagram @thetinmen