Last year, the Department for Education published a study showing that middle-class girls were “more vulnerable” to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. The same week, my column invited us to question these stats and I received the (now both regular and predictable) online backlash, with social media users accusing me of “ignoring the evidence”.

Now, listen: I love a bit of evidence. My work relies heavily on collaboration with scientists and I value well-researched approaches and genuinely expert opinion. “Correlation is not causation” is basically my mantra (which makes me incredibly fun company at parties). Yet I also understand that, when it comes to perceived differences between demographics in the prevalence of mental health issues, statistics can be misleading because the studies undertaken usually rely on either asking people or looking at numbers of diagnoses.

There are many reasons why, if you are female and middle-class, you are more able to speak openly, and in language that falls within the accepted and recognised canon, about your mental health. I do not believe, having worked in schools throughout the UK for the best part of a decade, that affluent young women suffer disproportionately with mental illnesses. I have, however, noted that they are much better equipped to recognise the signs of poor mental health in themselves, are more confident to speak openly about it and tend to inhabit environments where there is better access to medical help and less stigma associated with seeking it.

A man kills himself in the UK once every two hours. Charities such as CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) have identified retirement age as being the most common time for a man to take his own life. There are, of course, reasons relating to the sudden change in pace and the loss of a professional identity (and how that relates to a man’s identity more generally), which make this a potentially perilous time, emotionally. Yet, according to Mental Health First Aid England, 90 per cent of suicides happen as a direct result of untreated depression, and 50 per cent of depression manifests before the age of 14 and 95 per cent before the age of 18.

This, I believe, paints a fairly comprehensive picture. It tells us that the anguish that ultimately leads to men reaching crisis point in middle age may very well begin at school. It also tells us that boys and young men are much less able to either identify fluctuations in their mental health, or to talk about them in a way that is heard and understood.

A few weeks ago, I wrote in my column about my distaste for victim-blaming and I mentioned that asking boys and men why they didn’t “speak up” about their mental illness is just as ignorant as asking a female rape survivor what she was wearing at the time of the attack. I cannot say with my hand on my heart that I think simply emphasising the importance of talking is, on its own, going to provide the solution to male suicide. I think it represents a way to ask an individual who is vulnerable to provide their own solutions to problems which are both socially-caused and personally overwhelming.

‘Unconscious gender bias’

Having said that, I do believe understanding unconscious gender bias is important. Boys are, in many ways, even more constricted by the expectations associated with their gender than girls. Teaching them emotional vocabulary and that it is OK to show emotion from an early age is vital.

What, though, of the boys and young men who are struggling silently whilst we make these colossal social changes? Over the course of the past year, I have devoted a lot of my time to trying to answer this question. I am aware, of course, that I am a woman. Yet I think, in some respects, this was an advantage.

As a female, I have been frustrated in the past by people telling me that I am a victim. I understand that I am socially and economically disadvantaged, in some respects, because of my sex. I understand, too, that there is a lot of work to be done in gaining equality. But I have also observed some people in positions of more power than I who believe that simply acknowledging this is all they have to do. By telling me I was a “victim”, it felt that they were patting me on the head and saying “there, there” rather than genuinely engaging with the issue, or with me.

I thought about what I would have preferred them to do and concluded that I wanted to be asked about my experiences as a woman, for my contributions to be valued rather than dismissed and for efforts to be made so that I and people like me could live in a more positive environment.

So that’s the tack I have taken with boys. There is so little research into male mental health because people have erroneously conflated an ability to speak on the topic for increased “need”. I am also not male. So the most useful thing I can do in that context is acknowledge that I do not “get it” and ask boys and men to tell me about their experiences and what would be helpful, for them.

My small focus groups have revealed a number of findings, including that boys and men want to (and indeed do) talk about “feelings” but that they are most likely to do so alongside an activity of some kind, such as sport. It has also revealed that they do not necessarily need to talk in emotional terms in order to feel supported; that they value the presence of community-formed groups such as the barber’s shop (particularly if they are Afro-Caribbean) and that just having somewhere they could “hang out” and not be judged made them feel better. You only need to look at the work of Global Teacher of the Year Maggie MacDonnell to see the powerful impact these kinds of “safe spaces” can have.

I can’t tell you how delighted I was this week when shaving brand Harry’s launched its ”Masculinity Report” at an event sponsored by Labour MP Ann Coffey at Parliament. The report was researched using a huge sample of tens of thousands of men throughout Britain and set out to discover what really makes men happy. It completely backed up my findings. So now, not only do I have my anecdotal research, I have some robust evidence to back it up.

I look forward to working with Harry’s, as well as its partner charity CALM, over the coming months and finding out how we can change the environment to better support the mental health of boys and men. I will, as ever, keep you posted.

Natasha Devon MBE is the former government mental health champion. She is a writer and campaigner and visits an average of three schools per week all over the UK. She tweets @_natashadevon. Find out more about her work here. 

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