Troubled Men and Threatening Women: The Construction of `Crisis' in Male Mental Health

Abstract

In recent years, the development of an apparent `crisis' in male well-being (and, more specifically, in male mental health) has become a focus of media and academic interest. This crisis has been linked to disruptions in the traditional system of gender relations, with men being problematically positioned within a changed social context, especially in relation to issues of emotion. In this study, articles on men's health in a British broadsheet newspaper are subjected to discourse analysis to examine the ways in which the crisis in male mental health has been rhetorically constructed. The analysis suggests that it is constructed as arising from the enactment of a traditional, hegemonic masculinity (seen as militating against emotional expression), gender role changes in the employment and sexual domains and the advance of women. Despite an apparent acknowledgement of a need for change, alternative enactments of masculinity are undermined. The implications of these analyses are explored.