Yesterday was International Men’s Day, which we mark with the completion of #100Voices4Men series of articles. Here we present a short summary of national media coverage of the day—the good, the bad and the ugly.
Firstly, the new Huffington Post Men section deserves a round of applause for providing coverage around the day which included:
A featured comment piece from our news editor Glen Poole called: why every man and woman support International Men’s Day and another from our features editor, Dan Bell, called: “it’s time to have a different kind of conversation about men and boys”.
An article asking what advice male editors at Huffington Post would give to their 15 year-old selves
I will celebrate International Men’s Day when stop raping
And the excellent “11 people that don’t quite get International Men’s Day” which highlighted some of the most absurd comments about the day including this one:
“I will celebrate #InternationalMensDay when they stop raping, killing, abusing, starting wars & taking up all the space on public transport.”
Meanwhile, The Independent mentioned International Men’s Day three times in a consistently negative and unhelpful way:
Max Benwell dedicated a column to explaining why we don’t need an International Men’s Day, unless it was used for “encouraging men not to assault or rape women”.
His wish came true when a fellow Independent journalist, Lucy Hunter Johnston, wrote a column educating male readers about the difference between “enthusiastic mutual consent” and rape before signing off with a cheery “Happy International Men’s Day”.
No attempt to inform readers about the issues men face
In a third article about International Men’s Day, The Independent ran an article with a long list of “pay gaps” affecting women, but made no attempt to inform its readers about the “pay gaps” that affect men or talk about the Top 10 Ways That Men Are Getting A Raw Deal At Work.
The Guardian also carried a piece opposing International Men’s Day from Michael Kimmel.
Over at The Mirror there were a couple of in interesting articles:
Firstly, it ran a positive “what is International Men’s Day and how should we celebrate it” article and invited readers to share stories about “inspirational man in your life or community”.
In a separate piece, it provided data on how many people make internet searches about International Men’s Day and International Women’s Day throughout the year.
Sexy nurse checks men’s testicles in public—seriously?
They also ran a story from the USA called “sexy woman dressed sexy nurse gives testicular exams in public” (make of that what you will).
The Daily Mail ran a story about “dating guru” Julien Blanc being denied entry into the UK in which Daisy Buchanan is quoted as saying: “It makes me very happy that, on International Men’s Day, Julien Blanc does not get to be an International Man.”
Finally, The Daily Telegraph’s Telegraph Men section ran two stories about male suicide generated by events held on International Men’s Day. The first reported on the charity CALM which launched it’s first “masculinity audit” while the second focused on suicide prevention campaigner Josh Rivedal who took part in a google hangout to mark the day.
Telegraph Men also ran a comment piece from our news editor Glen Poole which rounds up our round up called It’s International Men’s Day, so let’s give men a break.
—Photo Credit: International Mens’ Day
Compiled by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men
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