WHO SAYS MEN DON'T WANT SUPPORT GROUPS?

I had a date last night—with some guys in Red Deer who have prostate cancer—and their wives who have a standing invitation to their meetings—and the breast cancer ladies to whom they graciously extended a welcome. They had gathered, as you might have already guessed—to think and talk about hope. We got to talking about men as private people, not so much given to gathering in groups to discuss troubling attacks on their private parts. But surely this was a group of men meeting for precisely that purpose.
The Red deer Prostate Cancer Support Group has been meeting for more than ten years. It truly is a support group—not a group of fund-raisers. In fact, it rarely even has a guest speaker. Guys and their families get together to talk. They don’t take summers off. After all, cancer doesn’t take summers off. This is a group that debunks the myth that men won’t go to support groups.
Being with them brings to mind some other evidence from my past that also debunks that myth. In 1995 I was invited to help design a hope project for teachers on disability. The work generated a hope support group that became known as the Teacher Hope Initiative. One of the interesting things about this group was that half the members were men. This was particularly striking, because most teachers are women. Then, as time passed, and recruitment strategies changed, almost all the new members were women. Curious about this changing phenomenon, we observed that the original members were all recruited one on one. Somebody they trusted--some knowledgeable person with a sense of what the group could achieve—had asked them to join. Later recruitment was done by letter and general advertisement. Few men responded to that.
The old myth about men not wanting support groups is a dangerous myth. Following its lead we are tempted to accept our current practices as adequate. If men don’t participate, we say, then that’s their fault. They need to become more sensitive, more open. But may we need to make some changes too. Indeed, most of the social services are populated by women, and most of the programs offered are woman-generated. I hope that in future we’ll spend less effort keeping this myth alive and more effort articulating the value that men derive from belonging to support groups. I also hope we will make a solid effort to develop recruiting strategies that work for men, acknowledging without blame that different strategies might work for women.