When unemployment becomes an opportunity to build healthy gender roles

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Spain’s unemployment rate amongst men over 55 is 17 per cent, the highest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Having been brought up to fulfil the traditional role of the breadwinner, what happens to men when they are stripped of this function?

Since the outbreak of the economic crisis in Spain, many indicators have shown how it affects people’s mental health. The IMPACT study, for example, points to unemployment as a risk factor for mental health issues. Social workers at medical centres in Fuenlabrada, a municipality south of Madrid, were quick to detect this, seeing the rise in the number of men going to their general practitioner with symptoms of anxiety and despondency.

“Until the crisis broke out, men were nowhere to be seen in primary health care. Now they are starting to come to the doctor with an unspecific set of symptoms that are more common amongst women: anxiety, insomnia and other ailments that need to be treated in the right setting,” María Jesús de la Puente, a group observer and social worker at the city council, explains in the short film El Silencio Roto (Broken Silence).

They responded by organising a workshop on “healthy gender roles” based on the methodology of the Marie Langer Community Health Centre, then followed it up with another one on feminism and equality.

“There were 23 of us who took part and it was an eye-opening experience. We had been brought up with the view ‘if you’re not a worker, you are nothing’,” Manuel, one of the participants, explains to Equal Times.

“I began to realise that I had never been given any other option but to take on the role of the working man and the problem solver. You realise what you have missed, what you haven’t done. Little by little, we started to develop a better understanding of it all – a better understating of men and women – because we reflected on it, we looked more deeply into it,” he confides.

“It was by learning about concepts such as patriarchy and ‘micro-machismo’ – ‘low intensity machismo’ – that the Asociación Grupo Hombre Siglo XXI (21st Century Man Association) was born. We decided to create a space where they could give vent to their emotions and feel supported,” says Manuel.

Manuel is 52 years old. He lost his job and had just found another one when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. “I never used to talk to anyone about my problems. I used to fly off the handle over nothing and would come out with all kinds of abusive language. I could see how the relationship with my family was being destroyed,” he recounts. “I realised that I didn’t know my children, and then I felt like a puppet. I had been made in such a fashion that I had lost out on so many things along the way,” he confides.

 

“Talking about feelings within a group of men isn’t easy”

Javier is a 55-year-old graphic designer. His current, unstable job lifted him out of five years of unemployment. “I was the bad guy, a violent, nasty person before. Since I started working again I am somebody, because when you’re jobless, you’re nobody.” He is still receiving psychological treatment and has been on the verge of divorce three times. “My therapy is coming to the group. We all talk to each other and everyone is able to understand my problem.”

“Talking about feelings within a group of men isn’t easy, it takes courage. If you talk about a men’s group people think you’re talking about a group of homosexuals or guys who go out drinking together. Our society doesn’t quite understand when it comes to the male group,” he adds

What Javier calls the “group” is the Association’s self-esteem workshop.

“We talk about our feelings, about how deep they are. We don’t have a moderator and we allow the new ones to talk, if they want to. I struggled with it at first, but, little by little, you see yourself reflected in the others and it helps you to open up. We talk about ourselves but also about how we see women, about equality. Curiously, not many typically macho subjects come up,” Jesús tells Equal Times. He is 50 years old and has been unemployed since 2010. One of his two sons is falsely self-employed and the other, aged 21, lives at home and cannot find work.

“The only money coming into the house was unemployment and state benefits. It made me feel worthless, because of my patriarchal upbringing, as a man of the old generation, totally at odds with the new masculinities. I felt bad because I wasn’t taking home a wage, but thanks to the group I have a different concept of myself and of women,” he explains.

“Many of the men who come to the association follow the ‘work, bring home money –the more the better’ model. They still haven’t changed that outlook,” he points out.

Javier has a request for the local and national authorities: “They should create places where men can express their feelings, vent their emotions, and by doing so, relieve that tension in the domestic sphere. There has been the occasional man who has come here on the verge of unleashing his anger on his partner. As soon as we detected it, we redirected him to the appropriate service. We are not professionals and we’re not equipped to deal with a situation like that,” he adds.

 

“What it means to be a man is not the role they show us”

Antony, 53, has never been on unemployment benefits but he knows what it is to “feel useless”. He went from working 14 hours a day to not being able to lift a carton of milk because of a health problem. “When I was working I had a very different view on life to that I have now. Now I’m aware of the roles, that of the working man who thinks he has to take home as much money as possible to be a better husband and father, when what he is in fact doing is neglecting his family.”

He was close to suicide on two occasions. “I became aggressive. I felt I had no worth in society. No one could cope with me: they tried to help me but I wouldn’t let them,” he admits, sorrowfully. Discovering the association has enabled him to see the light at the end of the tunnel. “I didn’t think I needed help. I thought that as a man I could handle my problem myself. I have learnt to value my family and I have realised that I missed out on my children’s lives. I am starting to get to know them now. They tell me things, ask me things.”

His outlook changed three years ago. “What it means to be a man is not the role they show us from the moment we are born.

“The fact that men get together, that we talk about our feelings, our worries, about how we are, about how we can help each other, is marvellous and, what’s more, it is crucial. I had difficulty opening up, but I have learned to express my feelings,” he confides, clearly moved.

During the Healthy Men workshops, Antonio has learned to “know himself better and to value women more”. With the help of a social worker, he is going to take the workshops to his hometown of Parla (Madrid), to “help more men”.

“We want to build alongside women and we are working on that,” he affirms, emphatically. This resolve (based on one of the founding principles: for equality and against abuse), is taking them in directions they would never have dreamed of just five years ago, such as their proactive position against domestic abuse murders in Spain.

When crimes of this kind are committed in Spain, these men gather as a group to express their condemnation, to show their solidarity and to observe a minute of silence at the gates of the city hall.

 

This article has been translated from Spanish.