Stop being a wuss: People's perceptions of men experiencing grief in Australia.

Abstract

Three years have passed since the Australian Government's Department of Health released its National Men's Health Strategy 2020-2030. Presently, little evidence is available to show whether the strategy has achieved success in rectifying men's mental-ill health, particularly the experience of stigma when expressing vulnerable emotions such as grief. Concurrently, research within the field of psychology continues to show that men experience significant pressure to conform faithfully to their socialised gender role. Given the focus to better men's mental health in Australia, this study ascertained people's perceptions of men experiencing grief. The study adopted social constructionism to explore how participants perceived a fictious character living with grief using a hypothetical vignette by way of convenience sampling. Nine males and seven females who resided in Australia participated in answering seven questions concerning the character's experience of grief. Inductive thematic analysis yielded three themes which collectively represented perceptions of masculinised grief. Notably, avoid stigma by fixing grief, avoid stigma by quickly getting over grief, and avoid stigma by suppressing the expression of grief. SO WHAT?: The study suggests that a stronger research focus should be targeted towards rectifying stigma resulting from men's expression of vulnerable emotions by incorporating in depth interviews in order to create worthwhile public awareness initiatives. Such initiatives should seek to minimise societal pressures that are placed upon men to ensure conformity to dominant masculine ideologies and their socialised gendered role when experiencing and expressing vulnerable emotions such as grief.