Jesuit Social Services and Vic Health hosted a webinar on Wednesday, 22 July to share their findings of the Unpacking the Man Box report. The report surveyed 1,000 Australian men aged 18-30, builds on the findings of The Men’s Project’s 2018 report The Man Box.
Key findings from the survey includes that young Australian men who believe in outdated masculine stereotypes were themselves at higher risk of using violence, online bullying and sexual harassment, engaging in risky drinking and reporting poorer levels of mental health.
They found that men’s adherence to attitudes to gender is over:
- 25 times more accurate than a range of demographic variables in predicting the use of physical violence, sexual harassment, verbal bullying and cyber bullying
- 22 times more accurate in predicting the experience of physical violence, verbal bullying and cyber bullying
- 11 times more accurate than demographics at predicting very risky drinking; and
- 10 times more accurate than demographics at predicting negative feelings and emotions
The report also includes a range of recommendations to support young men to break out of the man box, live healthy lives and be their best selves.
The report in full has been released and can be found here: https://jss.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/JSS200712_UMB_Report_Digital.pdf
Vic Health also announced the launch of a suite of documents which will be useful for the sector: https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/media-and-resources/publications/healthiermasculinities
The 2nd webinar of this series will be Framing Masculinities, 5 August, 10.00am-11.00am. To sign up, please follow this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJGsHe6LS1QoX0QSiRPXel20fy0o6Rdx68cxB3tw7rR_lxeg/viewform
