A look at men’s health and wellness
The men’s movement, and its North American rise in the 1990s, is closely linked with poet Robert Bly’s book Iron John. Bly said in 1991 that he’d at first thought, “My male side was developed, and my feminine side was not developed…. [But] what I developed is the shallow form of the masculine, and what I need now is to develop the deeper form of the masculine….” What is currently happening among men in our society? What are the challenges? What is being learned?
Today, an international organization, The Mankind Project, and its New Warrior Training, provides an “intense, transformative men’s initiation which invites men to forge a deep conscious connection between head and heart.” Local participants have just completed a weekend training. (more…)
Celebrated as a bible for a new generation of women, The Vagina Monologues has been performed in cities across North America and at hundreds of college and university campuses. It has also inspired a dynamic grassroots movement—V-Day—to stop violence against women.
Our society’s preoccupation with body image is reflected in the fact that, at any given time, 70% of women and 35% of men are dieting. More seriously, a 1993 Statistics Canada Survey reported that in women between the ages of 15 and 25, 1-2% have anorexia and 3-5% have bulimia.