OH! Magazine - Australian Version March 2014 (Australian Version) | Page 28

( Men’s Health )

MICHAEL
COLLING

IT’S TIME TO BE A BETTERMAN
Michael Colling puts the hard word on men, to help change the future for our boys.

The recent violent and tragic
murder of 11-year-old Luke Batty,
at the hands of his father, left Australia
feeling numb and asking the question,
‘why?’ This came after a string of much
publicised ‘coward punch’ assaults,
many fatal, as well as a number of high
profile sexual assaults and murders, the
Jill Marr case especially still raw in
everyone’s minds. Then, millions of
Australians sat down and watched the
INXS story, Never Tear Us Apart where we
saw the painful final moments leading up
to the suicide of Michael Hutchence.
With suicide remaining one of the leading
causes of death amongst young Aussie
males, these scenes of anguish would
have hit home for more than just those
fans of Michael and INXS.
All of these things put human faces to
what the statistics have told us for far too
long: men are hurting. Badly.
Aside from the biological workings that
influence our behaviour, men are faced,
still, with the toxic stereotypes of
masculinity – to be ‘tough’ at all costs. In
my role as a youth worker I have often
posed the question to boys and young
men across Australia, ‘is it okay for boys
to cry?’ This is always met with a
res