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Global – New cultural initiatives are re-examining masculinity by focusing on mental health, body image and depression.
Men’s suicide prevention charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is just one of the innovators that aims to instigate discussion about the issue with challenging initiatives such as #Mandictionary. The print campaign raises awareness of communication issues and lists terms such as Camanflage, ‘the happy front men wear in certain social situations’, and Emancipated, ‘the opposite of Manxiety. To be free of all societal restraints about what it means to be a man’.
The charity is also the driving force behind CALMzine, a publication discussing the challenges of being a man in contemporary society, which has recently been redesigned to create a more accessible and youthful format. ‘Zine’ is in the title and we didn’t want to shy away from that as a format. As soon as you turn something like this into a magazine, the conversation around it becomes a lot more formal and precious,’ It’s Nice That art director Jamie McIntyre, who created the new design, tells LS:N Global. ‘Our aim was to help break down these barriers and fire up a dialogue.’
Discussion about men’s self-esteem, body image and depression is helping to transform the traditional notions of masculinity. Read our Male Positivity microtrend to find out more.