UN Women Australia’s International Women’s Day theme for 2026 is Balance the Scales. International Women's Day is often framed around helping more women find equality in the journey through life.
But perhaps part of truly balancing the scales also involves understanding the experiences of our male counterparts.
Sometimes understanding the other side of the scale helps us understand the imbalance more clearly.
Lately I’ve been hearing more men speak openly about the need for greater mental health support.
Many say they are struggling just as much as women do, but feel less likely to come forward and that fewer support systems exist for them.
In many ways, I agree with that.
But before we reach that conversation, it’s important to recognise something many women experience first.
One of the ongoing challenges in balancing the scales is simply being able to communicate experiences and feel genuinely heard. When women speak about issues affecting them, the conversation often shifts quickly to another question: “What about men?”
It’s a fair question. But sometimes that shift happens so quickly that the original conversation never fully lands.
The goal shouldn’t be to compete over whose struggles matter more. Real balance comes from understanding the experiences on both sides, and learning how to communicate in ways that allow those experiences to be heard without immediately dismissing the other.
Which is why I’m not convinced the solution is as simple as building more services or adding more programs. The issue feels deeper than that.
Emotional Struggle Is Not Gendered
Emotional struggle doesn’t really belong to one gender. When you start speaking with people honestly, you realise that almost everyone is carrying something.
In modern society, the support we offer for these struggles often comes in two forms.
- Medication, a pill to help manage symptoms
- Therapy, a trained professional to help unpack emotions
Both of these can be incredibly valuable, and I’m not dismissing them. But I’m not sure they are addressing the root of the problem, or the scale of the problem we’re facing.
If every person struggling needed regular therapy, we would need an enormous number of therapists. Waiting lists would grow even longer, and many people simply wouldn’t have the time or financial capacity to access that support.
When Emotional Pain Has No Healthy Outlet
When emotional pain doesn’t find healthy ways to be expressed, it often finds other outlets.
Sometimes those outlets are destructive.
Addiction, for example, can take many forms. It isn’t limited to drugs or alcohol.
- Endless scrolling on a screen instead of connecting with others
- Watching life rather than participating in it
- Comfort foods instead of nourishment
- Pornography instead of genuine intimacy
- Substances used to numb emotional pain
- Constant distractions instead of sitting with difficult emotions
- The search for quick relief rather than deeper healing
These behaviours are often attempts to escape emotions that feel too heavy to carry alone.
Is the Opposite of Depression, Expression?
Which brings me to a thought that has stayed with me for quite some time.
What if the opposite of depression isn't happiness, but expression?
When emotions have nowhere safe to go, they eventually turn somewhere unhealthy.
When people experience big emotions, those emotions naturally seek expression. If they are suppressed long enough, they either turn inward or outward.
- Sometimes they turn inward as depression, hopelessness, or suicide
- Sometimes they turn outward as anger, aggression, or violence
When we look at statistics around domestic and family violence and suicide, they can appear to be very different issues. But when you look closer, a pattern begins to emerge.
Men are disproportionately represented in both the harm done to others and the harm done to themselves.
That raises an important question.
Could both be connected to the same underlying struggle: people carrying emotions they were never taught how to express safely?
Anger Is Still an Emotion: Understanding Suppressed Feelings
For many men in particular, expressing vulnerability has historically been discouraged. Phrases like “man up” or “don’t be so emotional” have shaped generations of men who were expected to suppress what they were feeling.
Yet emotions don’t disappear just because they are ignored.
They simply change form.
Anger, for example, is still an emotion. Yet it is often treated differently from sadness or vulnerability, even though it comes from the same emotional system.
Why Community Connection Supports Emotional Health
So when we talk about support for men, perhaps the conversation shouldn’t only be about expanding formal services.
Perhaps it should also be about creating more spaces where expression is normalised.
- Spaces where people feel safe speaking honestly about what they are going through
- Spaces where connection replaces isolation
- Spaces where conversation happens without judgement
This kind of support doesn’t always have to come from government programs or formal systems.
Sometimes it starts at a community level.
People gathering. Talking. Listening. Sharing experiences.
When someone speaks openly about their struggles, it can give others the courage to do the same. It reminds people they are not alone in what they are feeling.
And that kind of connection can be incredibly powerful.
Because when people feel heard, supported, and understood, they are often better equipped to manage their emotions in healthier ways.
Balancing the Scales Requires Safe Emotional Expression
In many families and relationships, women have historically carried a large share of the emotional labour.
Communication, empathy, and emotional awareness are often skills women are encouraged to develop from a young age.
Perhaps that creates an opportunity rather than a division. If more men felt safe learning those same tools of emotional expression and communication, the benefits would extend far beyond gender debates.
Stronger emotional skills in men create healthier relationships, stronger families, and more connected communities.
Balancing the scales is not about putting one gender ahead of the other.
Real balance only exists when both sides of the scale are understood.
When people understand each other better, everyone benefits.
Where Does Expression Belong?
If emotional expression is part of the answer, the next question becomes where that expression belongs.
Because people rarely heal in isolation.
They heal in conversation, shared experiences, and communities where they feel seen and understood.
Which raises some important questions.
- What happens when the community spaces that once connected people begin to disappear?
- What things could we do as a community to encourage people to express themselves more openly?
In the next article, I explore the role of community itself and why rebuilding spaces for genuine human connection may be one of the most powerful ways we can begin to truly balance the scales.
Leave a comment (all fields required)